"^^o* 



\.'^^'\/^ 



^°^ 



<>\:i^. 














• no 



/ 

.**>.:■' 








i^<=U. 














«5^^ 






>••• 













^o. •- 
















-^<^^ 








^^<^^ 










*v- 



> ^1 



*^ 



HUMAN AND INDUSTRIAL 
EFFICIENCY 



BY 

HENRY CHELLEW. Ph.D., D.Sc. 

Member of the Academical Society, Paris {Gold Medallist); Lecturer, 
School of Economics {School for Officers), University of London 



PREFACE BY 

Rt. Hon. LORD SYDENHAM. F.R.S. 



G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
NEW YORK AND LONDON 

1920 






Copyright, 1920 

BY 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 




©CI.A604276 






^ 

^ 



DeDicateD 

TO 

MY COMRADES-IN-ARMS 
Of the U. S. Army 

who attended my lectures at this school of the 
university of london, 1919 



PREFACE TO AMERICAN EDITION 

The chief reason for submitting a special 
preface to the American Edition is to indi- 
cate as clearly as possible that this little 
book is as much American in origin and 
character as British. In other words, the 
reader will speedily recognize the deep in- 
debtedness of the writer to American au- 
thors, and sources of both material and 
inspiration. Following upon a visit to the 
United States (where he lectured in 191 3), 
the author never forgot the first impressions 
of the amazing efficiency displayed on all 
hands by Americans of all grades of society, 
and pledged himself after investigating 
these, to endeavour to establish some of 
these principles of human action in England 
upon his return. That this has been done 

iv 



Preface to American Edition 

(after serving in several regiments during 
the Great War), this work witnesses. How 
far success has been won, others must judge 
and time will tell. In England the book has 
met with a most cordial reception by all 
those journals and periodicals whose word 
of commendation is worthy of respect. 

The book is hardly a book at all — indeed 
it is intended as an introduction to a larger 
voltmie of a more specialized character, as 
stated on page 105. These pages may be 
looked upon as a short synthetic study of 
a vast field — but the reader is enticed to 
explore for himself by being given a series 
of swift glimpses of the fields which are 
under investigation. The brevity and terse 
nature of the chapters may be partly ex- 
plained by the fact that the writer was 
limited as to time in order to meet the urgent 
requests of a number of students who wished 
to have in some form a permanent record of 
lectures, apart from the well-known text- 



Preface to American Edition 

books on this subject. Here the volume is 
a precis of many hours devoted to ex- 
Service men of the Allied armies. 

More than one hundred American officers 
are already familiar with these words and 
ideas, having attended a course of lectures 
at the London School of Economics, on their 
way home from the war. They will possess 
and keep this manual as a memento of 
pleasurable and profitable times. We were 
comrades in arms and thereafter ardent 
students of the great Science of Industry 
and the Art of Life. 

American industrialists will note that the 
author writes not as an engineer, but views 
this vast and complex problem from the 
standpoint of philosophy and psychology. 
We have quoted their own prophets and 
sought to honour their intrepid investiga- 
tors, foremost among whom we will mention 
Gilbreth, Rudolph Binder, Professor Gil- 
man, Dean French, Johnson, and others 

vi 



Preface to American Edition 

whose utterances are axioms we use for our 
guidance here in Britain. To the author 
they have been the high priests of the great 
cult of Efficiency, and this little book is the 
offering of an ardent disciple. Where names 
have not been stated, when quotations or 
extracts have been used, the indebtedness 
of the author is all the deeper since in some 
cases he could not trace the source. Our 
hope is that the viewpoint of the book and 
its chief thesis will find acceptance in a land 
where efficiency is the religion of its people. 

Henry Chellew. 
London School of Economics, University of 
London. Late Devon Regiment and 
R. A. S. C, Sta^, War Office. 



vu 



PREFACE 
By the Rt. Hon. Lord Sydenham, F.R.S. 

The war has thrown a powerful search- 
light upon certain evils in our present in- 
dustrial system, and upon the grave dangers 
to which they have given rise. From the 
painful experience of four and a half years 
of dire stress, we have already learned many 
lessons of supreme value. 

We have now to deepen and extend our 
knowledge of industrial conditions and 
needs in order to reconstruct the relations 
between employer and employed, as the 
only possible means of securing the increase 
of production which alone can save the 
nation from bankruptcy and ruin. 

The existence of the present large popu- 
viii 



Preface 

lation depends absolutely upon the overseas 
trade which has been wholly disorganized 
and partly lost during the war. If that 
trade cannot be rebuilt and extended by 
the strenuous and willing work of all classes 
with hand and brain, a great part of our 
people will within a few years be forced to 
emigrate or starve. There is no conceivable 
alternative. 

During the war huge numbers of men and 
women were congregated into munition 
factories and were in many cases set to 
unaccustomed work. The result has been a 
revelation of the ease with which operations 
previously regarded as requiring long train- 
ing were mastered arid accomplished. 

The work of women and girls, especially 
in the year following their employment on 
a large scale, was a wonderful performance, 
which served permanently to discredit many 
preconceived theories in regard to skilled 
labour and to prove that intelligence coupled 

ix 



Preface 

with patriotic devotion could surmount 
difficulties previously believed to be soluble 
only by a highly trained minority. 

The effects of overstrain in men as well 
as in women were soon apparent, and a 
committee presided over by Sir George 
Newman was appointed to inquire into the 
health of munition workers generally. The 
reports of this committee constitute a mine 
of invaluable information on some aspects 
of labour which had been far too generally 
ignored. 

I will mention two only of the most 
important results of this expert investiga- 
tion. It was proved conclusively that long 
hours and overtime caused a direct loss of 
production apart from the indirect effect 
upon the health and efficiency of the 
worker. Cumulative industrial fatigue was 
shown to be as economically disastrous as 
its infliction on the worker is obviously 
inhuman. In the second place, it became 



Preface 

evident that the strain frequently told 
more heavily on managers and foremen 
than upon the manual worker. 

There were many other great lessons to 
which I cannot here refer; but these lessons 
were unfortunately not at once applied in 
the munition factories, although on several 
occasions I attempted to draw attention to 
them in the House of Lords. In one of 
their later reports, the committee stated 
plainly that the health of the worker had 
suffered to a serious extent from causes 
which might easily have been removed. 

We owe it to the war, however, that 
what is called *' Welfare Work'' in factories 
and workshops will henceforth be a per- 
manent institution recognized as essential, 
not only in the interests of labour with 
hand and brain, but in order to increase 
production. In a pamphlet just issued by 
the Home Office for the information of 
employers, the chief matters demanding 

xi 



Preface 

careful attention are snniniarized under the 
following headings: — 

1. Health (spacing of work and workers, 
adequate light and lighting, and pre- 
vention of fatigue). 

2. Safety (prevention of accidents and 
provision of first aid). 

3. General well-being (provision of drink- 
ing water, mess rooms and canteens, 
protective clothing, cloak-room ac- 
commodation and washing conven- 
iences). 

All these matters will now come under 
the purview of the new Ministry of Health, 
and we may hope that a great improvement 
in the physical conditions of labour will 
gradually be attained. 

Outside what is now described as ''wel- 
fare work, '' there are other questions of im- 
mense importance with which Dr. Chellew 

xii 



Preface 

deals in this book — questions which are 
only now beginning to receive attention in 
this country, but which must exercise far- 
reaching influence upon industrial conditions 
in the future. It is not sufficient to regulate 
working hours or to provide greater safety 
and comfort for the worker. It is necessary, 
as the author points out, to study *'the 
broad problem of Human Efficiency*' and 
to carry out ''more minute and scientific 
investigation'' than has at present been 
undertaken. We have almost succeeded in 
perfecting the inanimate machine. We have 
too much neglected the human machine, of 
all others the most marvellous and the most 
complex, because dominated by what may 
be called psychological forces. It has been 
possible in the case of animals to produce 
types exactly fitted for the service of man. 
Can something of this nature be achieved 
in the case of men and women by education, 
environment, and inspiration? Is the ideal 

xiii 



Preface 

of the happy and contented manual worker, 
proud of his skill and achievements, and 
conscious alike of his duty to the common- 
wealth and of his absolute dependence on 
directing brains, which his class is already 
supplying and may supply in greater degree 
in the future, an empty dream? How are 
we to attain what Dr. Chellew calls ''the 
right spirit in industry *' ? At least it is clear 
that human efficiency in the best sense can- 
not exist without some measure of that 
spirit. The only efficient worker with brain 
or hand is the man or woman whose heart 
is in ''the trivial round, the common task." 
To considerations of this kind Dr. Chel- 
lew's thoughtful book is devoted. As he 
points out in Chapter III, "it is perfectly 
clear that there are two fatigues, and that 
the most important is that of the mind or 
spirit.'' All experience proves that spirit 
can dominate fatigue and that men who 
work very long hours — hours not realized 

xiv 



Preface 

by the manual worker — ^may live to a 
happy old age, labouring to the last. We 
cannot balance brain work against physical 
exertion, as they have no common denomi- 
nator; but within limits, it is certain that 
''the mind or spirit" plays a great part in 
mitigating physical fatigue. ''The man 
who takes a real live interest in his work 
seldom suffers from fatigue. '' While, there- 
fore, the psychological factor demands care- 
ful study by all who are responsible for 
the management of industries, unintelligent 
manual work will always be destructive 
of the interest which the worker must feel 
if he is to put his heart into his task. In 
large numbers of operations, skilled and 
unskilled, there is a stupid waste of effort. 
The worker could produce more with less 
physical exertion than he is accustomed to 
employ, and he would gain morally from 
the consciousness of the best accomplish- 
ment with the least fatigue. Here is a 

XV 



Preface 

wide field which is beginning to be explored, 
and which the worker, himself, can assist in 
exploring if we appeal to his intelligence 
and initiative. ''Discharge of energy," 
writes Dr. Oilman, ''is pleasure in propor- 
tion to amount, complexity, and freedom 
of delivery." In work unintelligently per- 
formed there can never be pleasure. 

I regret that I have not time to give a 
general survey of the scope of this most 
suggestive and helpful book. "Thought," 
says the writer, "is the dominant factor in 
business, " and I find many thoughts in these 
pages which can inspire the study neces- 
sary to place our industries on the basis of 
good-will, the only basis which can guaran- 
tee efficiency and stability. We have, as I 
have said, neglected the human machine in 
its spiritual aspects, and to this neglect our 
present dangers are, I believe, mainly due. 
At this crisis in the fate of our country and 
our Empire, it may yet be possible to stem 

xvi 



Preface 

the rising tide of revolution by earnest 
appeals to the patriotism of our people 
which has saved us from Prussian domina- 
tion. 

But ''the former things are passed away, '' 
and the industrial conditions of the past 
cannot be continued. I commend Dr. 
Chellew's book to all who desire to obtain 
an insight into the causes of industrial 
unrest, and who are earnestly seeking the 
welfare of the workers, upon whose loyalty 
to the Constitution, fidelity to the best 
traditions of our race, and willingness to 
give honest work for their own benefit and 
that of the whole community, the salvation 
of the State from economic disaster now 
absolutely depends. 

Sydenham. 

August 2, 1919. 



XVll 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER 

I. — Introductory 
II. — Human Efficiency 
III. — What is Fatigue? 
IV. — Applied Psychology 
V. — Selecting Employees 



I 

i6 
37 
73 
96 



VI. — Scientific Management and the 

Welfare of the Worker . .122 

Appendix A — Handling The Human 

Factor . . . 131 

Appendix B — Training Executives for 

Efficiency . .138 

Appendix C — How to Establish an Effi- 
ciency Club . . 144 



XVlll 



Human and Industrial 
Efficiency 



CHAPTER I 

INTRODUCTORY 

The aim and object of this book is to 
stimulate interest in and focus attention 
upon what is undoubtedly the most im- 
portant factor in the evolution of modern 
industrial life. 

The one desire of the writer is to indicate 
at the very beginning that the book itself 
does not lay claim to be academic in treat- 
ment or scientific in character. Rather, 
and on the contrary, the aim herein is to 

I 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

map out the broad outlines of the problem 
of human efficiency along which others 
would proceed to more minute and scientific 
investigation. 

The reader will look in vain in these 
pages for the vocabulary of the psychological 
laboratory. 

Realizing that the industrial equation 
will be solved by practical rather than 
theoretical men, the object of the book is 
to indicate to the busy executive mind 
where the chief difficulties in industrial life 
exist and to offer various suggestions how 
they may be satisfactorily solved to the 
benefit of the worker in the first place, and 
the peace of mind of both the business ad- 
ministrator and organizer. 

Anticipating some of those inevitable 
criticisms which will naturally arise in the 
minds of reviewers, students, and the 
general lay-reader, it is earnestly hoped 
that the difficulties of the pioneer in the 



Introductory 

sphere of human economics will be readily 
recognized and due allowance made for 
them. 

Much of the material herein has been 
used in a series of lectures delivered at the 
School of Economics, University of London, 
and in addition much of what is stated in 
these pages has been expressed by other 
writers and investigators whose names are 
well known on three continents. 

My more immediate friends, assistants, 
and associates at home and abroad will 
recognize my deep indebtedness to them 
for a number of ideas which have been 
utilized and expanded, and for which I 
desire to acknowledge my gratitude and 
sincere thanks. 

To establish the importance of our sub- 
ject one has only to quote from several 
public utterances of some of our leading 
men of science and industrialists. Lord 
Sydenham, in his presidential address to 

3 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

the British Science Guild upon '^Science 
and Labour Unrest, '' recently stated: 

''If the great housing problem was neg- 
lected during the years in which the present 
industrial system was being built up, other 
matters affecting the life of the workers were 
equally ignored, until the war turned a 
searchlight upon them. I have pointed out 
that the intensity of muscular exertion has 
been diminished; but industrial fatigue in 
many aspects persists. The monotony of 
tending a machine, though* it may not cause 
physical exhaustion, does entail nervous 
strain, and leads to psychological effects of 
several kinds. Hours of work have been 
generally too long and not well arranged. 
There has been too much overtime, resulting 
in ctmiulative industrial fatigue. These and 
other questions were studied by Sir George 
Newman's Committee on the Health of 
Munition Workers, and we have now valu- 
able information which, if wisely applied, 

4 



Introductory 

can save the worker from undue stress and 
provide him with time for wholesome rec- 
reation. The study of the elimination of 
unnecessary movements, and of enabling 
work to be carried out with the least fatigue, 
was started in America, and is certain to 
make way in this country. It is claimed 
that, as a result of this study applied to 
mould-making, output was increased 165 
per cent, and wages 64 per cent., while the 
reduction in cost was 54 per cent. In the 
purely manual labour of unloading pig-iron, 
the corresponding percentages were 150, 
69, and 66. There is here a new branch of 
science, which can greatly benefit the 
manual worker, and at the same time in- 
crease production." 

In a recent lecture upon the Education of 
Colliery Managers for Administrative and 
Social Responsibilities, W. Maurice, a well- 
known practical mining engineer, stated: 
^ ''The most important 'machine' em- 

5 



Humeui and Industrial Efficiency 

ployed in industry is man. Every engineer 
is familiar with the conditions under which 
a contrivance will work most eflficiently. 
He knows that a little oil, applied in the 
right place and at the right time, will pre- 
vent it from, so to say, 'going on strike/ 
He knows that metals and other inanimate 
objects may suffer from fatigue, and that 
they will break down if they are not rested. 
He makes careful studies of all these matters 
and seeks to apply all human knowledge to 
obtain the conditions of maximum efficiency 
for any mechanism in which he may be 
interested. 

"What has he done so far, and what is 
he going to do, with regard to the one 
* machine' without which all others are 
utterly useless? The human machine has, 
it is true, been most extensively studied in 
the philosophic way throughout the ages. 
It is, however, only recently that man has 
been scientifically studied as a mechanism, 

6 



Introductory 

that his physiological and psychological 
attributes have been made the subject of 
laboratory research as distinguished from 
merely intellectual analysis. The every- 
day engineer continues to use the human 
machine with considerably less intelligence 
than he exerts when he is inducing a nail 
to follow the directions of a hammer. His 
methods of lubricating this 'machine' are 
empiric, not to say crude. His knowledge 
of human fatigue begins and ends with a 
general impression that some men are ' born 
tired, ' and the others don't do very much. 
As to 'efficiency,' the popular view is 
summed up in the impression: the larger 
the pay the smaller the output. And when 
he is considering how to get the best out of 
his men, his mind almost automatically 
drops the essential word and he finds him- 
self thinking how to get the best of them. 
The common attitude is based on experience, 
and is therefore in a sense true to life. But 

7 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

it is far from being the whole truth, and the 
day is not far distant when it will be wholly 
untenable. 

'*A reliable working of psycho-psychology 
would help the manager through innumer- 
able difficulties. He would see what was 
wrong with Scientific Management, as popu- 
larly expounded, and very soon find himself 
convinced that the efficiency of the htmian 
machine can be enormously increased. And 
this, not, as the earlier and a section of the 
present exponents of scientific management 
would increase it, by seeking to convert an 
immortal soul into a mere mechanism, but 
by means which are definitely contributory 
to the workman's spiritual and physical 
well-being. 

"The study of the coming science of 
Industrial Psychology would open the stu- 
dent's eyes to new adventures in research, 
and leave him more than ever satisfied that, 
for colliery managers in particular, 'the 



Introductory 

proper study of mankind is man.' If he 
could go through a wisely directed course in 
social psychology and in social science gen- 
erally, he would approach his life's work 
with an entirely new outlook, and would 
be far less likely to set up — or to permit 
others to set up — those petty irritations 
which lie at the root of so many industrial 
disputes. 

''All these studies are attractive: they 
are pre-eminently humanistic; and, since 
the pursuit of them inevitably leads the 
student into innumerable and enchanting 
bypaths, he is almost automatically set 
going along a path of great national service. '* 

Further, as Gilbreth points out in his 
pamphlet on *'The Measurement of the 
Human Factor in Industry": 

''The first step in any great movement 
is to arouse interest in the subject, to discuss 
the great problems involved, to outline the 
possible solutions, and to assign the various 

9 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

problems to those best fitted to under- 
take and handle them. 

''The next step is to realize that all this 
discussion, valuable as it is, can grow into 
such action as it deserves only if measure- 
ment is insisted upon from the very begin- 
ning of making the investigations outlined, 
if the records of measurement are in such 
form that they can be used by those who 
did not make them, that skill and experience 
may thus be transferred, and if the results 
of the measurements are incorporated into 
actual and universal practice as soon as they 
are properly synthesized into practical meth- 
ods of least waste. 

''The world has come to realize the truth 
of this as applied to material things. The 
day of standardization of materials and of 
machines is far advanced, and is daily pro- 
gressing; but such has been rarely the case 
with measurement as applied to the Human 
Element. 

lO 



Introductory 

''The design of machines is constantly 
changing; the human being is constant. 
Measurement on machines that are obsolete 
is of little value. Measurement of himian 
beings is valuable for ever. Such old saws 
as 'Genius must be unconfined and un- 
criticized, ' ' Skill is not a matter of measure- 
ment or of teaching, but of natur^al aptitude 
alone,' 'Expertness is the same as efficiency 
and the expert often develops as a lone 
worker and with no thanks to measurement,' 
have stood in the way of measurement. 
So have such ideas as that measurement 
of the human factor, and the supplying of 
work that this measurement shows to be 
the most appropriate, lead to monotony. 

"Now it is a matter of no difficulty to 
state the facts in their proper terms to an 
unprejudiced and open mind. Measured 
investigations prove that genius develops 
best and fastest when provided with such 
opportunities as measurement of the genius 

II 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

shows as necessary, and when relieved of 
all restrictive occupation and distraction. 
They also show that skill is largely a matter 
of training, and that greatest skill can be 
acquired in the shortest amount of time 
when right habits are acquired as a direct 
result of right methods having been taught 
from the start, and the himian factor in the 
learner and the teacher having been care- 
fully measured. 

''Most interesting of all, perhaps, is 
that recent investigations prove absolutely 
that while expertness and efficiency may 
be possessed by the same individual, often 
the expert is not an efficient worker. Many 
an expert worker in the industries, in the 
professions, and in the sports shows every 
evidence of working with speed and with a 
resulting output high in quality and quan- 
tity, but with a resultant fatigue entirely 
incommensurate with real efficiency. This 
is no mere theory of ours, not something 

12 



Introductory 

that we merely base on ' what might be ' or 
'what could be' or 'what we believe is.' It 
is the actual condition of affairs, as we can 
prove by records made on recognized ex- 
perts and champions in numerous lines of 
activity. 

"As for the idea that measurement leads, 
directly or indirectly, to monotony — ^it has 
been the direct results of measurement that 
have proved to be the great factors in 
eliminating monotony, and in injecting 
interest into all kinds of work. 

''Monotony is the result not of measur- 
ing the activity, or the human factor in 
the activity, but of wrong assignment and 
placement to work, or of such repetition of 
work that the mind is forced to follow a 
cycle of activity again and again, with 
nothing to stimulate during the process. It 
is the measurement that has resulted in 
better placement, and in assigning each 
individual to that type of work for which he 

13 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

will become best fitted and that he finds 
interesting. It is the measurement, and 
the theory and practice of measurement 
that is taught the individual at the work, 
that make him interested in the work itself, 
in his motions in performing it, and in the 
rest intervals that enable him to perform 
the most output with the least fatigue." 

The Rt. Hon. J. R. Clynes, M.P., in his 
address to the Annual Labour Conference, 
speaking of Co-partnership in Industry, 
expressed the following view: 

''Men will not aim at the highest output 
either to cheapen the cost of production or 
to give a greater purchasing power to their 
own wages until they are satisfied that 
greater output would mean greater pay for 
themselves. 

''Without any abuse of the human ele- 
ment in labour a limit of physical powers 
should not be fixed at the point of the ut- 
most endurance of which the human being 

14 



Introductory 

is capable. A limit even to industrial pros- 
perity should be fixed rather than work the 
human frame to death for some commercial 
end. In short, the human element must 
dominate future relationships, if the newer 
spirit on which greater success can be based 
is to be fostered. The spirit and the tone of 
workshop and factory can be vastly im- 
proved if workers are made by their exper- 
ience to see that they are, in the real sense 
of the term, partners in industry as well as 
producers of various commodities. The 
new spirit can be fostered only when the 
masses of workmen are reached by a con- 
sciousness of sharing in the control of the 
great undertakings which they maintain.'' 



15 



CHAPTER II 



HUMAN EFFICIENCY 



Surveying the industrial background 
of modern life, no question looms larger 
before the investigating mind than the 
problem of human efficiency. The centre 
of gravity has shifted from money to men. 
As we examine social phenomena today, 
the htmian factor presents us with a task 
involving vast research, land calling for an 
equal volimie of patient and cautious in- 
vestigation. The fierce combat between 
man and the machine grows with the years, 
and the whole world is filled with the whir 
of wheels. What will be the outcome of it 
all no one dare predict, but it is safe to say 
that now work is fast becoming scientific, 

i6 



Human Efficiency 

life itself takes a new perspective, and 
labour is more than ever worth while. Work 
is ceasing to be irksome, a task, and is seen 
in its true relation to life and human affairs. 
Efficiency (a much abused word) is our 
verbal expression of the symbol of one 
hundred per cent., and how to attain it our 
chief problem in every department of In- 
dustry and Commerce. 

What is Man Power? 

The power of money has been amply 
demonstrated during the war, and the 
efficiency of mechanical inventions also — 
but, up to the present, we have not arrived 
at any true definition of man power. Speak- 
ing scientifically, this is an unknown power. 
It is futile to debate the characteristics of 
the Superman; so far he has not arrived — 
not even in Germany — and among ordinary 
mortals we have yet to evolve the standard 

17 



Human and Industrial Efficiency' 

man. Here, again, we are without axioms 
to guide us in our researches into the prob- 
lem of man power. Ruling out the arbitrary- 
idea that man power is one-twentieth of one 
horse-power, we do not yet feel confident 
in putting forward any statement regarding 
the human factor which shall be final. 

The modern industrial world presents a 
most complex field for investigation into the 
background of economics. In organic in- 
dustrial evolution, the attempt at simplifica- 
tion by the establishment of trusts and great 
combines creates no Utopia for the opera- 
tive — the worker. Nevertheless, without 
men there would be neither money nor 
machinery. Man power is the greatest 
power on earth, yet we have not reduced all 
our findings to the nature of a graph. Man 
is not a constant, but a variable, and the 
net result of all our researches hitherto is in 
agreement with that statement. Here the 
problems are mainly embraced by the phy- 

i8 



Human Efficiency 

siological and psychological sciences. With 
the former we have been able to achieve 
great results in ameliorating the lot of the 
worker and in general human betterment; 
but in the domain of the mind we have yet 
a great distance to traverse. 

Modern industrial legislation has suc- 
ceeded in removing much of the hard charac- 
ter of the daily task, and here the State is 
becoming more paternal in its interest in 
the worker — ^yet much escapes the eye of 
the Factory Inspector. In the realm of 
human betterment we have not exhausted 
our work. No gospel of industrial salvation 
has been found, for wages and remuneration 
alone constitute but one part of the reward 
of human endeavour. The responsibility 
of the employer does not end with the hand- 
ing over of the pay envelope on the Friday. 
He is responsible in a larger and distinctly 
ethical sense for the happiness and for the 
general comfort of the employee. Indeed, 

19 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

we will go so far as to state that the Spen- 
cerian doctrine of human solidarity has 
never been so emphasized as in our day. 
In industry and in commerce employer and 
employee stand or fall together. Here, 
however, we need not dwell — such truths 
are obvious in the light of our political and 
social science. 

The Meaning of Efficiency 

Today, as never before, we are called 
upon to mobilize all our thoughts, acts, 
and emotions in the name of Efficiency. 
We are summoned to the battle for bread 
and new weapons are placed in our hands 
wherewith to win in the struggle for exis- 
tence. To this end we have invented whole 
armouries of devices, and in our offices the 
number of machines aiming at the saving 
of time and energy is legion, but we have 
not yet marked out distinctly the cycle of 

20 



Human Efficiency 

man power. Efficiency has been well 
termed ''the science of self -management.'' 
Here, again, we may analyze our termi- 
nology and well ask for the content of the 
word ''self," and the supplementary word 
"management. '' We know that man has a 
body and a mind. With the one he labours 
to live, with the other he peers into the 
mystery of infinity; but, turning his eyes 
inward upon the mystery of his own per- 
sonality, he is baffled, despite his use of 
weird and wonderful instrtiments. 

Let it be stated with emphasis that 
efficiency is not a mechanical thing; it is 
the science of life itself. We have it on 
the highest authority that the average man 
uses daily but fifty per cent, of his bodily 
power, and seldom more than twenty-five 
per cent, of his brain power. If this be 
true, the responsibility for so serious a social 
problem is with the educationist. We are 
all conscious of our latent powers, but mani- 

31 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

fold reasons seem constantly present to 
prevent us living a full life. 

The Right Spirit in Industry 

Anthropometric science is as yet in its 
infancy, but we are making strides in the 
direction of solving the mystic equation of 
human dynamics. Notable experiments 
are constantly being carried out in our 
psychological laboratories, and various text- 
books are arriving to guide us in our work, 
and instrtmients of a highly technical and 
specialized character also. 

Classical experiments on a large scale 
have been conducted in htmian efficiency, 
aiming at human happiness, by the Cad- 
burys, the Rowntrees, Lever Brothers, and 
others. These have proved what can be 
done where the ideals of business manage- 
ment are identical, and where employer and 
employee work as one. The restoration of 

22 



Human Efficiency 

the domestic spirit in industry has even- 
tuated in larger profits and wages and 
greater contentment all round. This is the 
true place of sentiment in business, and 
results abundantly prove that it pays. 

The general manager of today will be the 
labour leader of tomorrow. We know to- 
day how to utilize much of what hitherto 
came under the heading of waste, but we 
are only beginning our study of how to save 
time, energy, and motion on the purely 
human side of industry. 

Since the introduction of Scientific Man- 
agement, many minds have been engaged in 
solving this problem, and such results as 
have been chronicled provoke us to greater 
energies in analyzing the content of the 
word ''work.'' 

In America, the school of scientific man- 
agement has given us men who have builded 
better than they knew. Meeting with cold 
cynicism on the one hand, and hot opposi- 

23 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

tion on the other, they nevertheless pro- 
ceeded with their researches, and the results 
of their work constitute a body of teaching 
which has come to stay, despite all opposi- 
tion on the part of Trade Unionism. Such 
great names as Taylor, Barth, Gantt, Hath- 
away, and Gilbreth, to mention only a few 
of the pioneers, have become almost as 
familiar to the up-to-date executive as those 
in any other department of science. Claim- 
ing to be the apostles of a new industrial 
era, they have closed up their ranks and 
fought well against those arch-enemies of 
the human race, prejudice, tradition, ig- 
norance, and selfishness. 

Time and Motion Study 

The more important features of scientific 
management deal with the twin problems 
of Time and Motion Study, and Fatigue 
Study. Much has already been achieved, 

24 



Human Efficiency 

but much more remains to be accomplished 
by the investigators, who must be specially 
trained for the complex task before them. 

Foremost of the investigators is Gilbreth, 
ably seconded more recently by McKillop. 
The emphasis put into the task by Gilbreth 
aims at the elimination of avoidable effort. 
For an exhaustive survey of the problem, 
the reader is commended to the well-known 
texts by these writers. 

Beginning with intensive studies by the 
aid of the stop watch, results were achieved 
which, to the man new to the subject, seem 
to be little short of the miraculous. Later, 
various devices were invented according 
to the nature of the problem attacked, and 
in micro-motion study the cinematograph 
has perfected all previous records and meth- 
ods. The analysis of such simple operations 
as the folding of a handkerchief revealed 
that not only is there a right and a wrong 
way of doing most things, but further it was 

25 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

demonstrated in a close study of bricklaying 
that, whereas formerly a man would lay 
one thousand bricks per day, under this 
phase of scientific management, with brief 
instruction following upon a readjustment of 
tools and equipment, the same man could 
comfortably lay down three thousand with- 
out any extra fatigue. 

A Simple Experiment 

The user of an ordinary make of safety 
razor may try the simple experiment in 
shaving of recording his motions over a 
given time, with the aid of a watch, and 
he will find that usually he makes nearly 
250 motions to get a perfect shave — ^when 
by a close study of movement and the 
instrtmient these motions can be reduced to 
60. 

Whilst Emerson called his system ''Effi- 
ciency," Taylor called his ''Scientific Man- 

26 



Human Efficiency 

agement/' but the results were largely the 
same in the direction of eliminating useless 
and wasteful efforts, and finding the stand- 
ard or correct way of doing the task set. 

The incentive of the workman was en- 
couraged by a greater reward for personal 
efficiency in the way of both wages and 
bonus. The deadening effect of monotony 
(where standardization is aimed at) was 
lost in the collective aim towards the 
finished article — all processes of making 
and assembling were leading up to the one 
end of efficient production. 

No firm can hope to achieve perfection 
of product without devoting much atten- 
tion and spending considerable stmis of 
money on the human plant. All money 
spent here is sound investment. Reduce 
the errors of the operatives in production 
and you soon discover where lies the secret 
of efficiency. This is the scientific way of 
reducing costs and increasing output. Such 

27 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

a secret has the character of an axiom. We 
have efficient machines, and we have effi- 
cient systems of handling money, but only 
now are we seriously attacking the much 
more important problem of human efficiency. 
A close study of the human unit in industry- 
reveals to us the fact that whilst most 
movements of the body have a tendency to 
become automatic, yet man is much more 
than a highly developed automaton. Here 
we come close to the psychological field of 
investigation. We have not completed our 
map of the human mind, and thus far we 
are not in agreement as to the exact mean- 
ing of the word ''volition." 

Reference to the accompanying diagram 
must be made here to distinguish in a 
general way the main features of the in- 
volved problem of the worker and his place 
and power in the great industrial world. 

In our investigations into the fotmdations 
of human efficiency, we very soon reach 

28 



Human Efficiency 

the problem of fatigue. Here is the province 
of Time and Motion Study, aiming at the 






'*%/ 















9^^' 

#^^ 



v1^^ 


















elimination of useless and superfluous mo- 
tions and efforts, and wasteful methods of 
working. Let it be stated that the executive 

29 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

head or manager who wishes to establish 
this phase of scientific management need 
not betake himself to the task of becoming 
either a medical student or a psychological 
expert. The Psychotechnology of Mtinster- 
berg, and the researches of Baldwin and 
Ladd, will be time thrown away in study 
when experts are available, ready to place 
in his hands data of proved value by experi- 
menting in factory and workshop. 

Fatigue 

The Industrial Fatigue Research Board 
will confine its activities to this problem. 
In the domain of social and industrial 
science, this marks the beginning of a new 
era in these islands, for hitherto most, 
indeed almost all, of the research work 
upon this problem has been undertaken in 
the United States — the home of scientific 
management. Few text-books under either 

30 



Human Efficiency 

heading have been written in Britain, and 
little contribution has been made to this 
feature of industrial science. A beginning 
has now been made, under the official aegis 
of the Government, and a body of eminent 
scientists, supported by the sympathetic 
interest of the captains of industry, will do 
more to ameliorate the lot of the worker in 
one decade than an army of agitators will 
accomplish in a century. 

Industry must be htmianized yet more 
and more, and hours and conditions of 
labour call for readjustment in many trades 
and occupations. 

Fatigue may be generally divided into 
two aspects — omental and muscular, but a 
strict definition here would be difficult to 
substantiate. The ergograph is not the 
only instrument whereby we can calibrate 
the problem. 

Physiological-psychology is in its in- 
fancy, and, though much of a theoretical 

31 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

and academical character has been accom- 
plished, the hour has come for the practical 
application of established principles. How- 
ever, armed with the stop watch and other 
devices, backed by the data of the labora- 
tory, the investigator will speedily realize 
that the beginnings of fatigue are to be 
sought for outside the factory as well as 
inside. 

Leading up to the main problem of fatigue 
are subsidiary questions which should more 
or less be taken into consideration, and from 
which should emerge the co-ordination of 
the many departments and agencies outside 
whose aim is to organize and himianize our 
social structure. 

If we accept the axiom that ''Society is 
an extension of the Individual,'' it is then 
obvious where we must begin our research 
work. Ultimately we get back to bio- 
chemistry and psychology. Much may and 
does influence the life of the worker before 

32 



Human Efficiency 

he enters the gates of the factory, and we 
may briefly summarize the wider issues of 
the problem to be investigated. 

Sleep and Food 

A man who has not slept well cannot 
work efficiently. Again, a man who has 
not had proper and sufficient food cannot 
carry out his daily duties in a manner 
calculated to keep him constantly at his 
post. Housing and home-life may be 
reckoned as remote questions, but never- 
theless we shall not achieve our industrial 
perfection until we get the State more 
concerned with the welfare of its citizens. 

Our educational system is pedantic and 
most inefficient. Learning in our schools 
leads in the long run nowhere. The rela- 
tion of learning to earning is only now being 
realized in its true sense. We must build 
a bridge from the school to the factory, and 
3 33 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

in Vocational Training and Gtiidance find 
the solution to one of the most urgent ques- 
tions of the day. 

Before we hire any man we have a right 
(ethically as well as legally) to know some- 
thing of his medical history. Who can state 
for us the total cost per anntim of the myriad 
lost hours of work on account of sickness? 
Scientific selection and adaptation of the 
worker will deliver us from a host of our 
factory troubles. Here again is a call for 
the expert adviser and the specialist — 
usually a medical man working in concert 
with the general or the works manager. 

The Factory Inspector has been the 
guardian of the best interests of both 
employer and employee, but the Welfare 
Supervisor will add strength to our collec- 
tive attempt at improving and humanizing 
the daily task. 

Such problems as Air, Light, Sanitation, 
Canteens, Recreation, the provision of Rest 

.34 



Human Efficiency 

Rooms, First Aid, etc., will go far in making 
the hours in the factory as congenial as the 
hours outside, but the acme will not be 
reached without intensive research into the 
whole problem. Fatigue is the parent of 
industrial unrest and social discontent. 
Work will not be looked upon as a period 
of penal servitude for twenty years or more, 
but as the most ennobling phase of existence. 
The work card setting out the task after re- 
search by the expert in Time and Motion 
Study will not be looked upon as a sentence, 
but as a challenge to newer and better 
methods of work. 

All this, however, cannot be anticipated 
without the willing consent of the worker, 
and a corrected mental attitude on the 
part of organized labour. Propaganda must 
be undertaken in this field by those whose 
raison d'etre is to make work within the 
factory conducive to health and happiness. 

The provisions of all Acts dealing with 
35 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

employers' liability will lose some of their 
terrors when the worker takes a greater 
interest in his own welfare, and a deeper 
interest in his work. 

Our hope is that the scientific investi- 
gator of fatigue will lead us to something 
more than the discovery of anti-toxins 
and an elusive bacillus. Life may not be 
prolonged by any appreciable stretch of 
years, but nevertheless the span of exist- 
ence will contain elements which hitherto 
have been conspicuously absent in our 
working world and every-day life. We are 
assured that both the economist and the 
industrialist will pledge their moral support 
to any body of savants, investigators, medi- 
cal and psychological, who enter the indus- 
trial field to make the human factor their 
chief study. 



36 



CHAPTER III 

WHAT IS FATIGUE? 

It is undoubted that for every man there 
is a certain point of maximum efficiency 
for a period of years — that is to say, output 
or productive capacity, as compared with 
intake or consumption. 

Further, if this is true of one man it is 
true of all men, and thus an average can 
be taken showing the curve of Industrial 
Efficiency of a certain race under certain 
conditions. 

A machine running at a certain ntraiber 
of revolutions with a definite rate of feed 
would produce a definite ntmiber of articles 
per hour, and the machine does not suffer 
from fatigue, only from wear, and those 

37 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

who say that modern industry tends to 
turn man into a machine have overlooked 
this essential difference and its importance. 
What, however, is fatigue? Is it fatigue 
of the body, or fatigue of the mind? As far 
as the former is concerned, man may indeed 
approximate to a machine, but no figures 
have shown or ever will show that the 
biggest man produces the greatest output, 
except in special cases, and the fact that in 
our curves of fatigue we take an average 
shows that there is an inequality in man 
which is not proportional to physical 
strength. In other words, it is perfectly 
clear that there are two fatigues, and that 
the most important is that of the mind 
or spirit. The exhausted, but faithful horse 
will respond to the call of its master for 
another effort, and a dog will obey its 
master's instructions, even if it drops dead 
from exhaustion thereafter, but man is 
master of his own mind and spirit; and have 

38 



What is Fatigue? 

the great men of the world ever suffered 
from fatigue of the mind, or, if they have, 
have they not fought and overcome it? 

Look at Clemenceau and his indomitable 
spirit! Is it greed that makes him work, 
desire for money, or power, or show, or 
anything that the pseudo-Socialists pretend 
is the driving force of himianity and the 
cause of civilization? A million times. 
No! It is merely that greatest of virtues. 
Love of Country. To love your own family, 
work for them and protect them, is indeed 
worthy, but in that man is hardly better 
than an animal; but a nation which con- 
sists of an aggregate of homes can only 
appeal to a man's altruistic sense, which is 
denied animals, so that patriotism, or love 
of your country, is the principal line of 
demarcation between man and animals. 

But we cannot all be Clemenceaus, 
although it is an undoubted fact that no 
successful man — that is to say, deservedly 

39 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

successful man, one who has achieved his 
success by his own efforts and not at the 
expense of others — ^has ever allowed fatigue 
of the mind to overcome him. 

Does the man who works ten, twelve, 
fourteen, sixteen hours a day — and real 
work, that is, concentrating all his energies 
of mind and body on what he is doing — not 
suffer from fatigue? Of course he does, 
but he does not think about his fatigue, but 
about his work. 

The inefficient and the lazy envy the 
successful man, for when a man works hard 
but is not successful, as often happens — 
for there is luck, after all, in this world — 
they say he is a fool; and have they ever 
realized that a man who does his appointed 
task and no more remains what he is, where- 
as the man who throughout his life does 
more may become, in himself, a hundred 
or a thousand men, for that extra little bit 
of work day after day, week after week, 

40 



What is Fatigue? 

year after year, means that in this one man 
is stored knowledge and experience, which 
thousands of men together cannot equal? 
There is no simile in nature, because man's 
power of acctimulating knowledge is un- 
limited, his mind knows no frontier. 

Returning now to our curves of output 
and fatigue, it becomes obvious that in- 
stead of accepting the average figure as a 
fact we ought to look upon it as a starting- 
point and endeavour to raise all men, not 
to the average, but to the highest point — 
and it is possible. It is merely a question 
of a man taking an interest in his work. 
No one really likes work, yet civilization 
depends upon work, and the most civilized 
man is one who has compelled himself to 
overcome his natural disinclination to work. 
Interest is the secret of concentration. 

The skilled artisans today show little 
better spirit, for had they realized that 
they are the wealth-makers, or that all 

41 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

wealth is due to skill and brains, they would 
never have permitted the unskilled workers 
to usurp authority or dictate to the rest 
of the community their share of the wealth 
in the production of which they are the 
least important factor. 

The pretence of the social reformers that 
machines have killed the interest of the 
workers will not stand examination, for if 
every man desired to do his best he would 
take an interest in his output and would 
think how this could be increased, and 
every day he would go home and feel that 
he had done something worth while. 

The cause of industrial mind fatigue is 
due to the delusion that whereas a man 
works for a wage, his employer works for 
profit, whereas the employer has first of all 
to work in order to pay his wages. The 
relation between wages, work, and profit is, 
however, a matter of pure economics and 
belongs to that branch of science. 

42 



What is Fatigue? 

Fatigue and Efficiency 

It is difficult to determine precisely the 
content of the phrase ''Mental Efficiency/' 
Consciousness consists of a variety of 
mental states, chiefly that of feeling, which 
may be likened to a change in the tempera- 
ture of the stream of sensation entering 
the mind. 

Every hiraian being is more or less a 
perpetual riot of thoughts and feelings, 
and the greatest of all arts is the art of 
self-control. Possibly in the absolute sense 
no human being has ever achieved this 
desirable end. It may be regarded as an 
axiom that before we can control ourselves 
we must know ourselves. Will-power for 
effective action is the one desideratimi of 
all human studies. We have only to watch 
some men at their work speedily to recog- 
nize the fact that they have the utmost 
difficulty in escaping from their ancestors. 

43 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

The day is not far distant when, in addition 
to a man's medical history, supported by 
adequate testimonials as to his ethical value 
or degree of reliability, we shall find it 
necessary to ask every candidate for em- 
ployment to produce his personal efficiency 
chart, and from that data remuneration 
can be fixed, and only in this way or some 
such way, when both body and mind have 
been examined, will a person be employed, 
adapted to the task, and if necessary trained 
for it, and so work will become scientific 
and the highest results be obtained. 

It is a totally wrong idea that man is 
merely a machine. Man is a machine plus 
something indefinable which has never 
been fully explained by either philosopher 
or man of science. Fatigue of the mind is 
the most troublesome of himian ills, but a 
man must be taught how to be the master 
of his mind, and the most successful men 
in business are those who fight hardest 

44 



What is Fatigue? 

against this form of fatigue and continue 
to carry on the work. It is the extra work 
and the overcoming of fatigue which give 
him his experience and success and make the 
successful man the envy of the inefficient. 

The elimination of fatigue will often be 
solved, not by some mysterious laboratory 
process, but by a mental effort on the part 
of the individual. 

The man who takes a real live interest 
in his work seldom suffers from fatigue. 
Interest is the secret of concentration, as 
much as observation and comparison ex- 
plain effective thinking. Few men really 
like work as such, and, with many men, one 
of the greatest battles in life is to overcome 
this incipient disinclination to work. 

The human mind is the unseen power 
which dominates the business of the world. 
Without the mind oif man we should have 
neither the machinery nor money which is 
essential to carry on the work of life. 

45 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

However strange it may sound, the human 
mind is the least developed side of a man's 
life. Mechanical efficiency reached a height 
undreamed of a decade ago, but the scien- 
tific development of the htmian mind is 
only just begun, and if we are to reconstruct 
the life of the world and increase our general 
output of work, we must begin to look for 
the improvement of the individual as well 
as the machine. Here, however, the great 
fault lies in the direction of the fact that so 
much of human energy is allowed to rtm 
waste. The work we do must be of some 
practical value or else it is nothing but physi- 
cal and mental strain and a vast volume of 
wasted labour. 

A man has two kinds of work to perform 
in this world, physical and mental, and if 
it is true that the average man uses fifty 
per cent, of his bodily power and about 
one-fourth of his brain power, it is small 
wonder that the world is filled with more 

46 



What is Fatigue? 

or less useless effort. Someone has face- 
tiously said that a man is worth but 4s. 
per day from the chin downward, but no 
one thus far has been able to calculate the 
value of the mechanism behind and above 
the eyes. 

This is the great problem confronting our 
modern psychologists. No form of en- 
gineering is so great in importance as 
Human Engineering, as Edison so aptly 
termed it. We understand full well the 
power possessed by money and machinery, 
but we do not yet realize what man power 
really is. 

As we have already indicated, the centre 
of gravity has shifted from money to men 
in business. Man counts everywhere, all 
the time, in everything. Therefore it is our 
duty to make the most of this great factor 
lying within our grasp. In order to do this 
we must begin in school life to train the 
individual to be efficient by improving both 

47 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

physical and mental conditions. It is true 
that we have made some progress in improv- 
ing man bodily, but with regard to mental 
improvement we have far to go, and with 
such imperious facts before us we express 
our profound regret that no means of indus- 
trial salvation has ever been found. 

It is a mistaken idea that the employer's 
responsibility ends when his men are paid 
their wages. For is the emploj^er not to- 
day more than ever responsible for their 
welfare when they are outside the factory 
as well as inside? Because he engages at 
least one-third of the life of each individual 
in productive effort, it is therefore his duty 
to provide them with some means of healthy 
recreation, and in this respect the example 
of the Cadburys marked the beginning of 
a new industrial era in these islands. 

It is futile to ask ''Does it pay? '' for here 
the results are not only a hundredfold, but 
sometimes a thousandfold. Take the other 

48 



What is Fatigue? C . 

side of the picture, a factory built in an evil 
neighbourhood, closed in with dirty win- 
dows, no stops for rest, no canteens, no 
welfare work whatever, the whole place 
looking like the combination of a prison 
and a workhouse, and then ask what right 
the employer has to look for efficiency of 
production, ever-increasing profits, and a 
swelling balance at the bank. This, to say 
the least, is a reductio ad absurdum. This is 
the reason of industrial unhappiness, cease- 
less strikes, war between capital and labour, 
and subdued hatred of employers as a class. 
Never under such conditions will the maxi- 
mum of result be obtained with the mini- 
mum expenditure of time, energy, and 
money. 

The power lying dormant in man is an 
unknown power, though here we are not 
contemplating the Superman. We are all 
conscious of our possibilities, though we 
seldom realize them, and when we look 
4 49 



Human and Industrial Ef¥iciency 

backward we note inninnerable occasions 
where we could have done better with a 
little more forethought and effort. The 
fact is, the average man will not plan his 
life, therefore he either stands idle, or marks 
time and watches others pass him on the 
road to preferment. He has little courage 
to face the future, is possibly handicapped 
by the past, stands hesitating in the present, 
and is often content to let well alone. Until 
he is lifted from the rut in which he finds 
himself and given the impetus to forge 
ahead, there is little hope of any progress 
being made. Here, then, we have to give 
attention to Scientific Management; having 
observed the results achieved by the appli- 
cation of the scientific method to business 
in America and in our own coimtry, we are 
strongly of opinion — indeed, it is our con- 
viction — that here we shall find the true 
solution of those evils which constantly 
smite us inside and outside our factory life. 

50 



What is Fatigue? 

Scientific Management aims at the elimi- 
nation of all avoidable fatigue, waste of 
effort, and useless motion. It is obvious 
to remark in the first place that the estab- 
lishment of such principles will confer an 
inestimable boon upon the worker, for we 
are well aware that in every factory and 
organization there is much wastage of time 
and effort. 

If the reader will betake himself to the 
books of Gilbreth, McKillop, Mtinsterberg, 
and others, evidence will be given in sub- 
stantiation of these statements of an un- 
impeachable character. In this connection 
it is the intention of the author to supple- 
ment this present volume, which is of a 
general character, by a further volume 
upon Industrial Psychology of an intensive 
and exhaustive character. When we have 
been able to find out a man's capabilities, 
and to make a map of his mind and a gen- 
eral chart of his efficiency value, we shall 

51 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

then be able to fit him to a task whereby 
he will be able to attain his highest degree of 
efficiency. But unfortunately this branch 
of what is a new science has not had enough 
attention paid to it to render the results of 
investigators of real service. 

''Speaking in general terms, a man is 
efficient in business life when he devotes 
his energies to the tasks which lie before 
him with such wisdom that all are properly 
and successfully done. It has been well 
stated that to get a clear idea of efficiency 
let us think of man as a btmdle of energy, 
mental and physical, which must expend 
itself subject to the law of space and time, 
the highest degree of efficiency being ob- 
tained when a given amotmt of energy is so 
wisely directed that a task is completed in 
the least possible space and after the lapse 
of the least possible time. 

The essence of efficiency is the economy 
of energy, time, and space. When any 

52 



What is Fatigue? 

one of these three is wasted, or consumed 
without a desired result, we have loss of 
''efificiency/' 

We need a new type of engineer who 
shall be called the Human Engineer. His 
qualifications shall be training in physi- 
ology and medical science, studies and 
research in a psychological laboratory, and 
full knowledge of the conditions which 
obtain within the walls of the factory, 
supplemented by adequate information with 
reference to modern industrial legislation. 
In such a person we should combine ideal 
elements, and if attached to the general 
manager as a specialist, his services would 
soon be reckoned as indispensable no matter 
by what term his position on the executive 
was called. This is the age of specialization, 
and inasmuch as no man can m himself dis- 
charge all executive functions, the wise busi- 
ness administrator will therefore seek for such 
person and if necessary pay for his training. 

53 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

The Psychological Factor 

It has been observed that the work of 
the world depends on two factors, viz., per- 
sons and things, or, to use another phrase, the 
dynamic and the static factors. Too much 
thought and attention have been devoted 
to things, and consequently the true place 
of the human factor has not been discovered. 

But we are now beginning to realize that, 
in the competitive business of the present 
day, mental power is far more important 
than material power; the old order of things 
must be reversed. Up to the present we 
have first considered machinery and then 
we proceeded to think of men and the condi- 
tions of their labour. Now, however, we 
are beginning to think of man first and 
machinery second. The efficient human 
factor is what we are seeking for in the 
present world of business. It is the thinking 
man that we require. 

54 



What is Fatigue? 

But what is thought? Thought put into 
iron makes an engine, thought applied to 
sound produces the Messiah; thought is 
put into a quarry and a cathedral rises ; 
thought put into stone creates a city; 
thought put into our factories and or- 
ganized for efficient production produces a 
myriad things to supply the needs of the 
world. 

We fully realize that thought is the domi- 
nant factor in business. Men are paid more 
for mental capacity than physical ability. 
As is the case with electricity, so with 
thought: we do not know precisely what it 
is, but we do know how to harness it and 
direct it into productive channels to make 
it accomplish whatever work we wish to do. 

All the knowledge which we gain enters 
the mind through one of the five senses. 
We begin to sensate and think ; thus mental 
and physical energy are set up in the brain 
in the form of vibrations, and so feeling 

55 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

and action result. We may say that feel- 
ing depends upon thought. Here we are 
reminded of what Shakespeare says : ' ' There 
is nothing either good or bad, but thinking 
makes it so.'* We feel infinitely more than 
we think; indeed, we may say that in the 
life of the average man one-third is intellect 
and two-thirds is sentiment. The chief 
aim of the business man should be so to 
control his feelings that he can think more 
clearly and act with greater decision and 
precision. Chaos reigns where sentiment 
controls judgment. The whole secret of 
clear thinking lies in the two words ''obser- 
vation'' and ''comparison.'' It is essential 
that the five senses are trained correctly, 
then our thinking and working will be effi- 
cient, and here we have the foundations of 
our Science of Efficiency. The following ob- 
servations of Dr. Joseph French Johnson 
are very significant on this point 

**Know thyself! Socrates, the Greek 
56 



What is Fatigue? 

philosopher, held that a man took the first 
step toward knowledge when he recognized 
the fact that he knew nothing, and that the 
second step must be to study himself. 

''Socrates was right, but very few people 
know what he really meant. Most of us 
do much more idle thinking about ourselves 
than is good for us; what we would do if 
we were rich, how brave we would be if our 
courage could only be dramatically tested, 
what great things we would accomplish if 
we only had opportunity, what useful books 
we would write if we could only travel, how 
much good we would do in the world if we 
only had power. But all this is just dream- 
ing and romancing about oneself. It is not 
studying ourselves. The object of study is 
to get a knowledge of the laws which pheno- 
mena obey. We study astronomy, for 
example, to discover the law which controls 
the movements of the planets in the heavens. 
We study chemistry in order that we might 

57 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

know the laws governing the combinations 
of material elements. To study yourself, 
therefore, means that you must think of 
yourself impersonally and endeavour to 
find out what you are capable of doing and 
what motives impel you to action. Many 
a man knows less about himself than he does 
about his horse or his dog. A spirited horse 
cannot be safely driven by a man who does 
not know him. Most of us study our friends 
more than we do ourselves and could pass 
a better examination on their qualities 
than we could on our own. A man is too 
prone to think that he can accept himself 
as a highly finished product and that this 
world would be a paradise if only other 
people were better. 

''You are a very complicated machine, 
and you are always the person that can 
drive it, or in any way improve it. Your 
friends may know a great deal about your 
powers, mental and physical, and about 

58 



What IS Fatigue? 

your deficiences and efficiencies, but they 
cannot remake you. If you want your 
machine to be in the best possible running 
order and to do the work for which it is 
best fitted, you must know it more thor- 
oughly than you do your horse or dog. 
Once knowing your powers and their limita- 
tions, you will then be able to set for your- 
self a goal which you can reach. 

**What, then, is personal efficiency? We 
get the root meaning from the Latin word 
efficioy which means 'I do thoroughly.' A 
man becomes efficient when his mind is 
organized and he devotes his thinking capa- 
city directly upon all the activities of his 
life. The essence of efficiency is to think 
out the very best means of economizing 
materials, energy, time, and space. 

'*It is one of the greatest tragedies in 
our modern civilization that we have so 
few real thinkers. Many business men neg- 
lect their thinking powers and have little 

59 



Human and Industrial £f¥iciency 

use for the intellectual life as such. Con- 
verse with them outside the region of their 
own particular line of business life and we 
soon find that their mental capacity is 
strictly limited. The real reason of this is 
that they do not and will not use their capaci- 
ty to observe and compare. Mental poverty 
is the great barrier to executive power. " 

Personality may be split up into four 
divisions: first intellect, secondly feeling, 
thirdly body, and finally will-power. To 
achieve personal efficiency a man must 
obtain all four of these, and above all things, 
to become mentally efficient he must culti- 
vate his thinking, observing, and reasoning 
powers. 

To possess effective feelings, he must 
develop his ambition and his loyalty. These 
are fundamentals in our examination of the 
word ''service. '' Strength and health must 
be cultivated to obtain the maximimi of 
health of the body, and if a man is to become 

60 



What is Fatigue? 

efficient in will-power he must develop his 
initiative, decision, and perseverance. The 
chief of the five senses necessary for the 
development of the successful business mind 
are seeing and hearing. The great reason 
for high expenditure in business today is 
that so much supervision is required, em- 
ployees have to be told how and when to do 
a thing, and because their work has to be 
checked so often they obtain comparatively 
small remuneration. 

It is essential that the cost of supervision 
should be reduced; this can only be done 
by Staff Training. The minds of the opera- 
tives must be well trained and organized 
before we can do away with the great 
volume of waste. Men must be taught to 
think, see, and remember, and their initia- 
tive must be encouraged. This is one of the 
tasks of Applied Psychology and one of the 
most important departments of Scientific 
Management. 

6i 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

Only by the application of the Scientific 
method can we reduce supervision and 
eliminate the fatal factors of waste and 
fatigue. Business men must be taught 
sanity of outlook. They sigh for new 
worlds to conquer, but they cannot take 
advantage of the ground already lying 
within their grasp. They overlook the fact 
that much more depends upon their own 
personality and efficiency than on the 
bank balance and the armies of employees 
they engage. When they are themselves 
efficient, they must teach their employees 
to be so too. In business no man can afford 
to make mistakes, for all mistakes have to 
be paid for, sometimes by both the em- 
ployee and the employer. In Scientific 
Business Management the training and 
fitting of employees for the task is the one 
ever-pressing problem. A man in whom the 
five senses are highly developed is infinitely 
more valuable than the one whose senses 

62 



What is Fatigue? 

are undeveloped. The man who has been 
the subject of intensive mental as well as 
technical training is able to render much 
greater service to the employer. 

Our task then in the future is to specialize 
more upon what we may reasonably term 
the human plant. The advent of the psy- 
chologist in the factory is the most momen- 
tous step in modern industrial evolution. 
This type of specialist engaged upon htiman 
engineering will do more in one year to 
promote efficiency of organization than an 
army of factory inspectors in a decade. 
Engineers are greatly concerned with the 
efficiency of the mechanical plant and the 
processing of material through the factory, 
but the human engineer goes to the very 
root of a problem of production. 

The accountant will still continue to 
indicate where profits are leaking, the 
industrial engineer will chart out and mark 
the curves of inefficient production, but the 

63 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

industrial psychologist who aims at the 
elimination of fatigue and wasteful move- 
ment will achieve results little short of the 
miraculous. 

The first and only problem for any ex- 
ecutive or operative is himself. We talk 
with pride of Livingstone, Peary, Scott, and 
Shackleton, but the greatest discoverer in 
the world is he who has discovered himself. 

Men differ quite as much as dogs. No 
dog fancier would think of training a water 
spaniel to do the work of a pointer. Tem- 
perament or disposition seems to be funda- 
mental and unchangeable. A man who 
wishes to make himself lOO per cent, efficient 
must certainly take it into account. 

A man of a highly mental and nervous 
temperament should manifestly not enter 
upon a career in which physical endurance 
or muscular power is essential to efficiency. 
A man who dislikes intellectual effort, but 
loves physical activity, should choose a 

64 



What is Fatigue? 

calling in which muscular dexterity and 
power are a real asset. The man who in- 
stinctively dreads loneliness or monotony, 
but who will work with tremendous energy 
if he has companions and variety, should 
choose a business which will give him plenty 
of human contact. The man more given to 
meditation and philosophy than to action 
should not assume business responsibilities. 
He may be a fairly good routine worker in 
business, like Nathaniel Hawthorne, the 
great American novelist, or like Charles 
Lamb, one of England's choicest essayists, 
but he will not be really a business man. 

If a man studies himself he will know 
his own temperament and be in a position 
to choose that career for which he is per- 
sonally best fitted and to fit himself for it 
by the right kind of training. What his 
training ought to be depends entirely upon 
the peculiarities of his temperament. A 
standard training suitable for all is im- 

65 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

possible. Each man must be his own 
schoolmaster. 

It must be evident that a man cannot 
do all that has been prescribed unless he 
has trained his mind to be an obedient ser- 
vant. The whole aim of education on the 
intellectual side should be to develop the 
power of clear and honest thinking. A 
man whose mind delivers to him judgments 
perverted by passion or prejudice has an in- 
efficient mind. His first duty is one of men- 
tal discipline. He must correct his mental 
bias and make his mind look straight into 
the heart of things. 

It is exceedingly difficult to convince a 
man that his mental processes are not 
entirely normal. 

And, of course, it is almost paradoxical 
to expect the man to discover the fact 
himself. This is one of the reasons why it 
is so important that a country's educational 
system be of the right kind, and that our 

66 



What is Fatigue? 

public school teachers seek to develop their 
pupils' judgment and reasoning power as 
well as to store their memories with infor- 
mation about matters geographical and 
historical. To be on the safe side a man 
seeking to increase his efficiency should 
assume that his mind needs all the training 
that he can possibly give it. Perhaps he 
cannot go to a school or to a university, 
but that is not necessary. Scientific books 
are numerous and cheap. Let him take up 
some science and thoroughly master it. 
Let him think as he reads, and so discipline 
his mind in the pursuit of truth. No man 
is too old to take up a new science with 
interest, and no man's mind is so fine and 
efficient that further study and discipline 
will not improve it. The man who lets his 
mind lie fallow for long intervals will often 
fall. 

If the maximum possible value were 
produced by a given effort, the efficiency 

67 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

would be perfect and might be properly 
expressed as *' i '' or loo per cent. In point 
of fact, when dealing with human beings, 
it is impossible to do more than compare 
the efficiency of different individuals; but 
it is very noticeable that one man may be 
more fatigued by a given task than another, 
not only on account of his different physical 
state, but owing to the different manner in 
which he performs the task, whether it be 
physical or mental. Should the work re- 
quired to be done vary, the efficiency should 
be kept at its maximum, and the effort thus 
saved be used either in further productive 
work, training, or recreation. 

There are four main factors in the pro- 
duction of wealth — ^material, energy, time, 
and direction: energy is here used as the 
source of all mechanical forces whether in 
coal, a waterfall, the tides, etc. (external), 
or muscular (in a human being). ''Direc- 
tion'' signifies the part played by intelli- 

68 



What is Fatigue? 

gence in production, whether it is the skill of 
the miner which enables him to make the 
best uStC of his muscular power and tools, or 
of the man of science who invents a new 
process, or of the organizer who applies and 
carries out the process. Of these factors the 
last is the most important, at any rate from 
the point of view that only by its develop- 
ment can the productivity of industry be 
materially increased. 

An individual engaged in business may 
have at his command, in greater or less 
degree, capital, connections, strength, tech- 
nical skill, and other personal qualities. 
The two first have always been produced 
for the individual, possibly by him, through 
the exercise of the last three; thus we see 
that the fundamental values of the indivi- 
dual are his strength, skill, and personality. 

These qualities are the resultant of 
heredity, environment, and training acting 
through and on the individual — ''through" 

69 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

in so far as he is able by the exercise of his 
will and partial power of choice to select his 
environment and training and determine 
the use he shall make of them. The im- 
portance of the power of the individual to 
control his development cannot be over- 
estimated. 

The higher the position held, the greater 
the importance of personality in business. 
Every possible quality has either a helpful 
or a hindering effect, which we may express 
by calling them positive and negative quali- 
ties. Some qualities are invariably positive 
or negative, whatever the conditions and 
in whatever intensity the qualities exist, 
but others may need qualification. Thus 
laziness is always a vice, but strength of 
will, though generally a virtue, may cease 
to be one if carried to extremes in certain 
circumstances. Strength of will must be 
qualified by adaptability and respect for 
authority, generosity by the sense of one's 

70 



What is Fatigue? 

own advantage, self-confidence by discre- 
tion, but honesty, energy, sympathy, power 
of concentration, etc., can be nothing but 
assets. 

The power of perception, conception, 
analysis, synthesis, and reason must be 
continually at work in order to make the 
best use of the available factors of produc- 
tion — ^in fact, in order to realize what 
factors are available; for instance, in hardly 
any factory is the force of gravitation made 
sufficient use of, or the factory designed so 
that it can be used to the greatest possible 
extent. In the organization of a business, 
besides appreciating the monetary situation 
it is necessary to learn from past experience 
and to be able to forecast the future; these 
functions give scope for every faculty. 

But it is in actual dealings with men, 
face to face, that the importance of person- 
ality is most marked. Problems of labour 
control and organization are assuming 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

greater importance every year, and in order 
to deal with them satisfactorily, broad 
views, a deep knowledge of human nature, 
and the power of appreciating the point of 
view of others are most necessary. If the 
character and personality of an employer 
are not such that his employees are naturally 
disposed to tru'st him, there will be con- 
tinual friction and loss through discontent. 
And it is not only in dealing with labour that 
personality is important, equally important 
is the handling of equal or superior officials 
of the business and possible customers 
outside it. 



72 



CHAPTER IV 

APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 

Industrial Psychology is the youngest 
of all the sciences, and like all new sciences 
the pioneers have great and manifold diffi- 
culties to overcome. The devotees to the 
laboratory method do not take kindly to 
the views and methods of those who, in the 
world of men and machinery, have been 
able by experiment to prove the practical 
utilities of this branch of research. Whilst 
acknowledging our indebtedness to them 
we shall look in vain for industrial peace 
to the expert with the stop watch and the 
ergograph. We should appreciate much 
more their elaborate discoveries if they 
could prove to us that they really under- 

73 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

stand how smoke comes out of a factory 
chimney. 

The himian machine is the most wonder- 
ful of all instruments, and thus far, although 
we know how it works, we do not know 
why it works. Indeed, it is quite safe to 
say that thus far we have no definition of 
the term ''man." Both theory and de- 
finition alike have failed singularly here, 
and all we do know is that man is a body 
and a mind, and with these two things he 
has been able to perform all the wonders of 
the industrial and business world which we 
see around us today, after experimenting 
with countless types and forms of civiliza- 
tion. With his mind these things have been 
planned and projected, and with his body 
they have been executed with results often 
disastrous to himself. It is more than 
obvious that both body and mind are sub- 
ject to fatigue, and this perplexing problem 
is not only the most interesting, but one 

74 



Applied Psychology 

likely to yield the most useful results in 
making work worth while. 

The chief bone of contention is: How can 
we eliminate fatigue or at least reduce it 
to a minimum? Speaking empirically, we 
must look after the man properly. It is 
more than obvious that he must have food, 
but few men indeed know how, when, or 
what to eat. Again, the worker cannot be 
efficient unless the air of the shop or factory 
is purified and kept at an even temperature. 
To this end all workshops must be ventilated 
properly, but even then few men know how 
to breathe properly. And beside these 
the lighting conditions must be adequately 
adjusted to the task, and finally, without 
sufficient sleep and rest no workman can 
be expected to arrive in the morning in a 
physical condition equal to the demands of 
the day. Here it may be useful to observe 
that effective or efficient sleep does not 
depend on the time factor, but rather on 

75 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

the quality or condition of sleep obtained. 
Sleep must be quiet and restful, without 
any disturbing influences arising from with- 
in or without the body, and it is essential 
that it should be in the proper bodily posi- 
tion, which, in other words, means that to 
sleep properly the knees should be drawn 
upwards and not stretched out at length. 
All these things and a thousand others the 
workman must be taught either inside or 
outside the factory, if we are to cut down 
fatigue and the inevitable collective indus- 
trial unrest ensuing. 

The most trustworthy psychologists in 
their text-books indicate that the average 
man is only 50 per cent, physically fit and 
about 25 per cent, mentally efficient. This 
is a startling fact. 

Man has achieved wonders with the 
htmian hand, the most perfect of all instru- 
ments. We may even say that with the 
human hand he has subdued nature. If 

76 



Applied Psychology 

the great war has taught us one lesson above 
all others, it has taught us that thus far he 
has not subdued himself. 

It comes with startling effect upon our 
ears to be told that the human mind is 
capable of doing only three things. 

However great the intellectual capacity, 
only these three things can be performed 
by the individual mind, but it follows that 
a highly organized intellect can perform 
them much more efficiently than a weaker 
or undeveloped one. Speaking in general 
terms, the body provides the muscular and 
physical energy and food for the mind, 
whilst the mind does the planning and acts 
as the administrative department. It is as 
though the body were the engine house and 
the mind the dynamo. 

At this point it may be well to indicate 
that the most pressing problem in the in- 
dustrial world today is the elimination of 
waste; and the greatest waste of all is that 

77 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

caused by the human factor. Myriads of 
men are placed in positions and given tasks 
entirely unsuited to them by nature and 
experience, and consequently work is done 
more by guesswork than by knowledge. It 
should be the aim of every business man to 
find the right way of doing things, get the 
right man to do them, and see that they are 
done in the right way. Then, and only 
then, will knowledge be substituted for 
guesswork, which is the daily religion of the 
average man. 

To obtain personal efficiency we must 
get the maximtim of result without injury 
to health. Health and working efficiency 
go hand in hand. We must eat, sleep, 
drink, and breathe properly. This will give 
us bodily health. Our trouble is to know 
how to become efficient in mind and body, 
and to mark out the frontiers toward which 
we may safely go. Recalling an ancient 
saying with reference to the possibilities of 

78 



Applied Psychology 

man, *'It doth not yet appear what we shall 
be. " Man has achieved such prodigies that 
we raay claim some sympathy with the cult 
of the Superman. 

The Science of Work 

Before proceeding to the further chap- 
ters of this book we purpose in this to sup- 
port our main argtiment by quoting in 
extenso from the texts of various writers of 
authority upon the problem of the Htiman 
Factor. This will substantiate our main 
argument and indicate by a consensus of 
opinion that the subject, though looked 
upon as new, is being investigated by many 
minds. 

We are now at the beginning of a new 
science, the object of which is to apply the 
Scientific Method to all forms of human 
endeavour and to eliminate for ever, we 
trust, the ceaseless interrogation ''Is life 

79 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

worth living?'' Let us first of all find out 
the content of the word ''work/' and then 
proceed to outline in its main features the 
Science of Work. 

If we can do this we shall settle for all 
time one of the greatest of industrial prob- 
lems, viz.: ''What is a fair day's pay for a 
fair day's work?" In all phases of human 
endeavour, heredity is a tremendous factor 
in the expenditure of energy. Impulses 
stream constantly into the brain both day 
and night, leading the worker to move along 
two main lines, the line of heredity and the 
line of environment; and when we analyze 
the problem of volition, a point is reached 
where the individual has to decide which of 
these impulses should be restrained or 
allowed to pass into the zone of energy. It is 
in this zone of energy that a man's work is 
accomplished, and as he works, habits are 
formed which sooner or later create a ten- 
dency to make the life of the individual 

80 



Applied Psychology 

automatic. Probing into the origin of the 
word ^' habit, '' we soon reach the conclusion 
that a man either has habits or the habits 
hold the man. 

It is the man who, being conscious of 
the struggle between thought and feeling, 
overcomes feeling by the exercise of self- 
control and so masters his habits and does 
not waste either time or energy. 

Work implies all forms of activity, either 
mental or physical, on the part of man, 
with a view to providing sustenance for the 
future apart from the abounding gifts of 
nature. We must either work or starve. 
Animals and savages rely chiefly on nature, 
therefore they frequently starve. The finest 
thing which ever happened to man was when 
he was turned out of the Garden of Eden 
and made to work. 

To mention the well-known classification 
of Dr. Rudolf Binder, Work is divisible 
into three classes, first Toil, then Labour, 
6 8i 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

and finally Work proper. By the word 
''toil" we mean the application of mere 
physical energy to overcome an obstacle, 
and because it usually implies that some- 
one else has set the task, therefore no one 
likes it. On the other hand, labour is the 
application of physical and mental energy 
for the accomplishment of a task, both the 
task and the method being set by another. 
This is also distasteful to the majority of 
men. Work proper is the application of 
both physical and mental energy for the 
accomplishment of a self -set or enjoyable 
task. There is a zest in real work which 
always brings happiness. 

Compare, for instance, the motives of a 
man at a machine, and an author writing 
a book. The latter expends six or seven 
times as much energy on his work as the 
former does on his labour, and yet as a rule 
he is much happier. The task of the author 
is self -set and therefore he is much happier 

82 



Applied Psychology 

than the labourer, whose task is set by some- 
one else; thus he is seldom happy. All men 
incipiently believe in self-direction, but 
few men exercise self-control. 

Here the words of Dr. Gibnan are 
pertinent: 

''If a man is rightly placed in the world's 
work, doing what he is best fitted for to 
the height of his best powers, and if he 
clearly sees that by so doing he fills his place 
in the universal economy perfectly, then, 
granting of course that he is properly 
nourished physically and socially, he is 
happy. But if he is ill-nourished he is un- 
happy, not power enough flowing in. If 
he is ill-placed in social service he is un- 
happy, lacking right lines of discharge, his 
energy banking up and pushing against 
right doors that don't open, and moving 
very slack through wrong doors that do. 
Moreover, though well-nourished and well- 
placed, if he is hag-ridden by some ancient 

83 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

lie about work being a ctirse, a disgrace, 
or some such idiocy, then he is unhappy 
because his own mind, clogged and twisted, 
turns on cross-currents of pressure that 
spoil the smooth flow of energy. To 
recapitulate: 

''Life is action. 

''Action is conscious discharge of energy. 

"Discharge of energy is pleasure in 
proportion to amount, complexity, and 
freedom of delivery. 

"Social action involves greatest amount 
and complexity, and so, with free delivery, 
greatest pleasure. Our free delivery is 
checked by wrong conditions and wrong 
concepts. 

"By altering the concepts we can alter 
conditions and so make social action normal. 

"Work is social action. 

"It is the expression of social energy for 
social use. 

"It is essentially collective, and we find 
84 



Applied Psychology 

work most highly developed among most 
collective creatures, as the ant, the bee, and 
man. 

'*It involves a higher degree of intelli- 
gence than the preceding processes. All 
the efforts of animals to take food are excito- 
motory, and either egoistic or, at most, 
familistic. They are hungry, they desire 
something, and they go to get it, performing 
whatever actions have become necessary 
in the pursuit. But work is the process of 
making, not of taking. It is not excito- 
motory, but the result of cerebral action.'' 

In these forceful words the distinguished 
author emphasizes the place which the mind 
occupies in the field of the world's work, 
and few, if any, will take exception to the 
argiraient so ably expressed and logically 
sustained. 

Here then, inevitably, we have to con- 
sider work as Applied Psychology, and it 
would be correct to indicate that, there- 

85 



Human suid Industrial Efficiency 

fore, animals do not work. Work always 
implies a direct and definite end in view. 
Work involves planning and scheming, 
method and the application of scientific 
principles. Here the objection might be 
raised that squirrels, bees, ants, etc., engage 
in work, but a little examination into our 
terminology will reveal the fact that such 
is not the case, for with them all there is 
no conscious planning. They follow out 
what is a natural instinct to provide for 
the future. Of them it is true to say they 
only live in the present. Only human 
beings have the ability to look into the 
future, and this ability depends upon a 
super-state of consciousness such as is not 
possessed by the lower creatures. Both 
savages and children are lacking in this 
respect, and only by education and training 
can this deficiency be obviated. 

Most of the time and energy of the savage 
is spent in hunting and in war dances, but 

86 



Applied Psychology 

he does himself little good, as he has not 
the ability to see into the future and seldom 
is able to meet an emergency. Therefore 
his life is an alternation between feasting 
and fasting. Work requires patience as 
well as skill. The savage makes up his mind 
on the spur of the moment, but inventors 
like Edison, Marconi, and Tesla think for 
very long periods, sometimes for years, 
before they bring their mental creations to 
birth. 

Rome was not built in a day nor West- 
minster Abbey in a century, and with these 
two examples before us we see the signifi- 
cance of the term *'work. '' Someone will 
say that a genius makes up his mind on the 
spur of the moment, but this is seldom right, 
for genius is the infinite capacity for taking 
pains. Great patience must be spent on 
work. On the one hand it is quite true that 
in many phases of human work ''He who 
hesitates is lost,'' and on the other it is 

87 . 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

equally true that **He who does not hesitate 
is lost/' 

To refer to Dr. C. Gilraan again: 

''Work is in two main lines, Production 
and Distribution; to make something, or 
to hand it about, is human industry. '' 

''To create is an intense satisfaction; to 
combine elements and produce new results, 
whether it be a bridge, a basket, or a loaf 
of bread — to make is in itself a joy. But so 
is it a joy to give something to somebody, 
whether at first hand, or in a combination 
with many; to spread, to disseminate, to 
feel the current of human good flow through 
you; both ftmctions are happy. 

"The tmiverse is an everlasting produc- 
tion, force taking form, energy embodied, 
disembodied, re-embodied — this is the game 
of living. Our little mid-station of con- 
sciousness feels the pressure of natural 
forces on both sides, pushing in through the 
sensory nerves; pushing out through the 

88 



Applied Psychology 

motor nerves. Owing to our early mistake 
about the superior pleasure of impression, 
and our perverse insistence that expression 
is only a guarded outlay of limited force, 
by which to secure desired impressions, we 
have only understood the nature of human 
production. 

''The pleasure of right impression is not 
to be denied. Every sensory nerve should 
have its proper stimulus. And man, with 
his immense collective sensorium, with his 
highly developed personal sensations, due 
to social evolution, and his power of feeling 
with and for other people, has enormous 
capacity for the reception of pleasure. But 
what is all this pleasurable stimulus for? 
The brain is not merely a reservoir for stored 
sensation. A sensation is a certain amount 
of energy going into the human battery. 
Once in, it must be discharged in commen- 
surate activity. 

''Most interesting experiments in psy- 
89 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

chology are being made today, proving this 
even in some immediate result of a strong 
mental impression in unconscious bodily 
motion, as shown in studies among school 
children. As the brain develops it has in- 
creasing capacity to receive impressions, to 
retain and to arrange impressions; but, 
nevertheless, sometimes that mass of im- 
pressions must come out in commensurate 
action, else disease ensues. The human 
brain, socially developed and socially stimu- 
lated, has great power of expression; that 
expression is in work, and work is in Produc- 
tion and Distribution. The productivity of 
the human race, even with its past and 
present checks and perversions, is the 
wonder of the ages. Guaranteed swift and 
easy satisfaction of those 'wants' our econo- 
mists build so much on, the steady increase 
of impressed energy has resulted in as 
steady an increase of expressed energy, 
necessarily. 

90 



Applied Psychology 

*'Man receives stimulus from a thousand 
sources. Since we made mental impressions 
permanent and exchangeable *in book form/ 
knowledge and emotion bottled, .preserved, 
and distributed broadcast, there is prac- 
tically no limit to human stimuli; and, since 
with this increasing stimulus we have stead- 
ily reduced the difficulties of execution, our 
real problem is, how to provide right outlets 
for the productive energy of humanity. 
This normal increase of power and execution 
we have managed to check, however, quite 
materially. We have gravely interfered 
with the natural distribution of stimulus 
up to the present time; but now our rapid 
multiplication of free school and free library, 
with similar tendencies in other educational 
and recreative lines, is producing its natural 
result in increased 'energy.''' 

Psychologically speaking, work has made 
us human beings; without work we should 
be animals. It now remains for us to 

91 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

humanize work; work has enabled us not 
only to secure our present needs and com- 
mon luxuries, but also to provide amply 
for the future. Further, it has taught us to 
be much more sociable. Work has educated 
us in a thousand ways; the very imiverse 
in which we live is a ceaseless hive of in- 
dustry. 

It is an entirely erroneous idea that the 
savage is a stronger and healthier being 
than the civilized man who works in the 
office, workshop, and factory. Length of 
life depends upon vitality, and we have 
abimdant proof that our vitality now is 
greater than when we were savages. The 
savage allows a great deal of energy to rim 
to waste at irregular intervals, but he has 
then to take long rests because he has not 
sufficient energy to carry on continuously. 
He toils for a period and then rests; he can- 
not work, for work is psychological and 
must be methodical. Work liberates man 

92 



Applied Psychology 

from nature and therefore the savage has 
to be content with what nature provides, 
and very often he suffers badly in conse- 
quence. 

Work imparts a quiet dignity to a man 
which is not seen in the man who wastes 
all his time. Work is not degrading and an 
intelligent and diligent man can be dis- 
tinguished by that impressive dignity. 
London and all the great towns owe their 
greatness to the mediaeval craftsmen who 
worked and learned their crafts thoroughly. 
They were always respected even in those 
days of feasting and merriment simply 
because of their dignified ways and because 
it was realized how essential they were to 
the country. Method is absolutely essen- 
tial to business; work must be systematic. 
Slaves working together realized that they 
must all pull together if only for their own 
benefit. So now do we realize that co-opera- 
tion among competitors is one of the finest 

93 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

things in the business world. Systematic 
work is necessary for us to be able to enjoy 
leisure. In the past, work was looked 
upon as an evil to be endured; idleness was 
the great aim. But now we know that work 
is essential. In short, the Philosophy of 
Work is that he gets most from life who in- 
vests most of himself in it. 

One of the initial problems we have to 
deal with is the Selection, Adaptation, and 
Training of employees. So far as machin- 
ery is concerned in this country we have in 
all probability the most efficient in the 
world, and in our Empire we have abundant 
raw materials also. But if the secret of 
reconstruction is increased production, it is 
more than obvious, in the light of what 
other countries are doing, that we must 
increase our Htiman Efficiency, and to do 
this we must bring the school to the factory 
and so bridge the gulf between learning 
and earning. 

94 



Applied Psychology 

Because of the importance and dignity 
of business in our social economy, we must 
above all things carefully select and then 
most carefully train our employees. 

With reference to adaptation and train- 
ing, we now have certain principles for our 
guidance which are more or less accepted 
as axioms of character analysis by experts 
in charge of the employment department. 



95 



^ 



CHAPTER V 

SELECTING EMPLOYEES 

Whatever a man thinks and feels, 

that he is. 
Whatever a man continues to be, that 

he writes upon himself. 
Whatever a man writes upon himself 

can be read by one who imderstands. 
That which is written on a man's face 

shows what kind of life he leads. . 



These statements are axiomatic. 

On these principles, the selection of em- 
ployees depends — that is, if we aim at 
establishing scientific regimentation in in- 
dustrial life. Nature has taken millions of 
years to build the brain of man, therefore 

96 



Selecting Employees 

we can afford to devote a reasonable amount 
of attention to the problem of organizing 
and co-ordinating mental processes. 

Nature began by building a small portion 
of brain matter at the back of the skull, 
and then, with her evolutionary programme, 
she added layer upon layer, and finally 
evolved the faculties of reasoning and 
judgment. And so far as we know, without 
examining the problem of the genius, nature 
has finished with the objective mind and 
endowed man with the propensities of self- 
consciousness and memory. 
//'We know now that the higher types of 
men are those with the greatest develop- 
ment in the frontal lobe. If we look for a 
moment at the heads of such men as Darwin 
and Spencer, we note at once the immense 
development of the frontal region of the 
skull. Their foreheads were massive and 
show what great thinkers they were. The 
advancing forehead belongs to the thinker, 
7 97 



Human suid Industrial Efficiency 

the sloping forehead belongs to the doer, 
the man of action. 

Instinctively we know that features indi- 
cate character more or less. Largeness, 
smallness, coarseness, and fineness of featurfe 
all indicate very largely the kind of brain 
possessed by the candidate for employment, 
and in this connection it is permissible to 
state that here we are only observing and 
translating nature's own handwriting. // 

There are three influences affecting a 
man's character, Heredity, Environment, 
and Habit. To understand himself and to 
solve the problem of self-determination it 
is necessary for every man to probe into 
his pedigree and then realize that he is an 
expression in time and space of the myriad 
lives preceding him. 

Environment determines to a great ex- 
tent the bias of the life of the individual, 
and in the direction of habit lies man's 
hope or despair. 

98 



// 



Selecting Employees 



All hope of efficiency must come from 
the daily life of the individual. Habits de- 
termine character, and character is oft 
remote from reputation. We are reminded 
here of the saying of Homer that ''a man's 
character is his demon"; in other words, -^ 
it is that which he has inherited, and it has 
been well stated that '^a man's character is 
what he is by himself in the dark, but his \ 
reputation is what he is in the light. '' The / 
character of a man and his habits can be 
determined largely by the formation of the 
face, and it has been proved by experimen- 
tal psychology that by altering the mode 
of life and developing the latent faculties a 
man can completely change his features. 

If we refer to the writings of Dr. Black- 
ford and those who follow the school of 
character analysis by observational diag- 
nosis, we may accept the theory that all 
types of htmian beings are reducible to five 
groups. We have, for instance, the motive 

99 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

or square type of face. Persons belonging 
to this type are the most trustworthy and 
independent in the world. Lord Kitchener 
was a man of this type. They are deter- 
mined, dignified, and scorn to lean on any 
one else. There is also the vital or roimd 
faced type; such persons are full of vitality 
and are often bubbling over with energy. 
These are the pleasure-loving, jovial, and 
substantial people. Then, again, we have 
the purely mental type — those who have 
the kite-shaped face. These are the idealists, 
the highbrows, the people who are minus 
sentiment. They possess great thinking 
powers, are very deliberate, exact, and 
precise in all their actions. As a rule they 
are most uncompromising and are alert, 
keen, and practical. We find them amongst 
the higher professions. Then, again, we 
have the acid or greyhound type of face; 
these persons are uncompromising and delib- 
erate, and are invariably keen, practical, 

100 



Selecting Employees 

and penetrating. Finally, we have the 
alkali or concave type of face; where the 
features retreat, we find the retreating 
mind. Where the root of the nose is sunk 
deeply between the eyes, we find the gen- 
eral disposition to be over-cautious, hesi- 
tating, and procrastinating. They have a 
tendency to put things off until it is too late. 
Generally speaking, they are mild, reflective, 
and patient, and strictly speaking, they do 
not make good business men. 

Temperament also can be determined by 
outside appearances. Light-haired people 
are generally versatile, brilliant, and fas- 
cinating, and often difficult to manage. 
On the other hand, dark-haired people, 
because they are in a lower state of vibra- 
tion, are steadier, more dependable, good 
organizers, and make excellent managers. 

Speaking empirically, it is much easier 
to manage a dark-haired person than a 
light-haired one, so that the wise executive 

lOI 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

or works manager will see to it that as far 
as possible his types and temperaments are 
balanced up in the workshop, office, or 
factory. We must mix our human chemi- 
cals right to avoid explosions. 

In sizing up applicants for a post, great 
care should be taken to note all these things, 
although here it may be wise to observe 
that *'a little knowledge is a dangerous 
thing.'' Most of our business troubles arise 
through the vital and alkali types, because 
these people in the long nm think more of 
their bodily comforts than of their business. 
If we require a thinker we must choose a 
combination of the motive, mental, and acid 
types. Such a person would make a good 
costing clerk or an accountant. A good 
salesman is the man who has a slightly 
receding forehead and a firm, square jaw. 
They show tenacity of purpose and quick 
thinking, factors which are absolutely essen- 
tial to the vocation of a salesman. A man 

102 



Selecting Employees 

with large development on the top and at 
the back of the head, as a rule, is a man of 
great moral purpose and character. Such a 
type makes a good husband, but, strictly- 
speaking, is not always a good man at busi- 
ness because he is for ever striving to serve 
two masters. 

In selecting the employee, great care 
must be also taken to notice the ears, the 
lip, and the chin. When the ear is in the 
centre of the head, this sign usually denotes 
the man of balanced mind. When the ear 
slopes near the neck we have the sign of 
the man of aggression — the fighting or 
animal man. The upper lip of the business 
man should be long and straight, for this 
indicates great power of concentration, 
cautiousness, and self-control, factors essen- 
tial in the life of the successful man. The 
lower lip also gives us a great insight into 
character. If the lip slightly advances it 
shows that the person is of a friendly dis- 

103 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

position, but where it recedes it shows just 
the opposite. A square chin indicates 
tenacity of purpose, but a man with a 
double chin should not be in an office; he 
should be outside the factory, working off 
his spare energy. 

Here the reader will say, ''What is the 
use of all these ideas to an employer of 
labour?" The answer to that question is 
found in the fact that nature writes upon 
the features of a man his character, and 
without being a psychologist it is possible 
to interpret these signs by close observation 
and study. 

It is better by far to employ the man 
with the power to take in the work for 
which he is wanted and to train him than 
to engage a man totally unsuited for the 
work because he has been half -trained for 
it. He will never make any further pro- 
gress. It is necessary, then, for employers, 
if they are successfully to compete in the 

104 



Selecting Employees 

coming economic combat throughout the 
world, to get the right man to do the right 
thing, at the right time, in the right manner, 
in the right place, rather than to work by 
nile-of-thumb methods, and this can only 
be done by engaging an expert for so great 
a responsibility, or to train himself to select 
his employees and then adapt and train 
them for their work. ^ 

The continuous hiring and discharging 
of operatives, because of their unsuitability 
for their work, costs modern industry tens 
of thousands of pounds per annum. In 
large works it is as essential to have a 
properly equipped employment department 
as it is necessary to have a costing depart- 
ment. 

It is our intention in the subsequent 
volume to which this is an introduction to 
deal much more exhaustively with the 
subject of vocational adaptation and train- 
ing, believing as we do that when we have 

105 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

solved this problem all those which natur- 
ally follow in the economy of business life 
will more or less solve themselves. The 
dynamic and the static divisions of our 
modem industrial life must be thoroughly 
analyzed and co-ordinated before we can 
hope for emancipation from the thousand 
ills which invade our social economy on 
every side. And here we may usefully 
refer the reader to the excellent manual of 
Professor E. D. Jones upon Business Ad- 
ministration, from which the following ob- 
servations are taken. 

''A nearer approach to the scientific con- 
trol of industrial operations has probably 
never been made in the world's history 
than in those establishments now employ- 
ing 'Scientific Management.' There are 
men who have shown the world how to save 
time and toil, how to meet the unexpected 
with infinite resourcefulness, and how to 
preserve an unsullied personal honesty 

1 06 



Selecting Employees 

under the cloak of corporate organization. 
There are leaders who, without systematic 
training in youth, have yet built up a new 
science of affairs, the principles of which 
can be taught to the coming generations.'* 

Few things will help forward the science 
of Industrial Administration more than 
to drop the old question, ''How much is he 
worth?'' A true aristocracy will never be 
formed in Industry until all good men unite 
to draw the lines sharply, and resolve to 
give honour only to those who have shown 
the capacity to observe accurately, to think 
straight, to preserve their ideals, and to 
develop productive rather than predatory 
industries. 

In the long run, methods are infinitely 
more important to industry than the results 
which at any given moment embody their 
effects. The prevalence of honourable and 
efficient methods is the only thing which 
can keep open the road to future achieve- 

107 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

ments. The first care, therefore, of the 
business community should be sound meth- 
ods. We hear much of governmental and 
other reforms which are feared because they 
will disturb business. It is safe to say that 
there is hardly any probable destruction of 
property which will not, in the long run, prove 
immensely profitable, if it is the price which 
must be paid for a superior method. To say 
this is merely to apply the well-established 
principle of scrapping obsolete equipment to 
the problem of getting rid of superseded 
and worn-out methods and policies. 

The paramount value of methods was 
emphasized by Mr. Carnegie when he said, 
''Take away all our factories, our trade, 
our avenues of transportation, our money; 
leave me our organization, and in four years 
I shall have re-established myself. '' Results 
change from day to day; scientific methods 
are a heritage of intangible capital of more 
permanent value. Results represent past 

io8 



Selecting Employees 

conditions; methods prepare for what is to 
come. To possess efficient methods is to 
have the power to recover lost results, or 
to replace obsolete results at will; but to 
possess results with inadequate methods is 
to begin at once to fall behind. Results 
may be acquired by accident; methods are 
transmitted only by the slow growth of 
habits. Results may be easily transferred; 
to the attainment of superior methods there 
is happily no royal road. 

Science must combine with Industry, 
and the Scientific Method must be applied 
to all phases of our economic system. 
Professor Goldmark in the well-known 
book upon Fatigue and Efficiency has sub- 
mitted the most complete analysis upon 
our main problem to the present-day in- 
vestigator, and those who wish to proceed 
further into the problem may wisely direct 
their attention to the writings of this dis- 
tinguished scientist. 

109 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

Co-operation between labour and capital 
is the one thing we most ardently desire, 
and if there is to be a cessation of the futile 
warfare between the two forces which we 
may conveniently term Money and Men, 
we must evolve a higher ideal as to the 
nature of our common social structure and 
pay greater attention to the Spencerian 
doctrine of htmian solidarity; and we en- 
dorse the wise utterings of the American 
author who stated, with reference to the co- 
operation of the men of science with the 
industrialists in making our modem civiliza- 
tion effective and permanent: 

"Industry and science agree in making 
large use of that simple form of co-operation, 
commonly known as the division of labour, 
by which persons of unlike genius are imited 
in the same enterprise, for the accomplish- 
ment of different functions. 

''The dawn of modem science in Europe 
presented, in the life-history of two noted 

no 



Selecting Employees 

men, a striking instance of the benefits of 
individual co-operation. Tycho Brahe, the 
leading astronomer of the latter half of the 
sixteenth century, was a nobleman of proud 
spirit and, by reason of a certain dramatic 
talent which attracted attention, able to 
secure from his royal patrons large grants 
for astronomical apparatus. He was an 
expert instrument maker and an accurate 
observer. His life was spent largely in 
compiling tables of observations of planet- 
ary movements. Kepler, who came under 
his patronage, and who worked with him 
for many years, was a poor observer, suffer- 
ing from defective eyesight. He was awk- 
ward in his movements, and possessed little 
mechanical ability. He was, however, a 
good mathematician, and he possessed the 
rare ability to become enthusiastic over 
statistical calculations. The five laws of 
planetary motion which Kepler discovered, 
and the Rudolphine tables which he com- 

III 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

pleted, are monuments to a splendid and 
devoted co-operation between two geniuses 
of entirely different endowments. 

''Applied science has a similar example 
of fniitftil co-operation in the case of James 
Watt and Matthew Boulton. Watt has 
described himself in the following words: 
'I am not enterprising. I would rather 
face a loaded cannon than settle an accoimt 
or make a bargain; in short, I find myself 
out of my sphere when I have anything to 
do with mankind.' Boulton was a man of 
affairs, full of energy and common sense, 
and possessed of property. He is remem- 
bered because he was able to perceive and 
respect the talent of a man entirely different 
from himself, and because he tenderly en- 
couraged and courageously defended that 
genius through manifold attacks and dis- 
appointments, to the lasting benefit of the 
world. 

''There are abundant illustrations of the 

112 



Selecting Employees 

fruitful co-operation of men of different 
talents in business. There are even enough 
men of wealth ready to enter into an arm's 
length alliance with science and education 
by means of a cold bequest. But there is a 
waiting opportunity for men of affairs to 
go into living, daily partnership with the 
arts and sciences, by entering into close 
personal relationships with men who need 
the help of a natural administrator to make 
their contribution to progress. A good 
many captains of industry might weave 
their names firmly into the fabric of history, 
as did Boulton, by aiding some delicate 
flower of genius with energetic counsel and 
a wise corrective influence." 

The main problem of efficiency of pro- 
duction being that of increasing the htmian 
capacity for output on the part of the in- 
dividual, we shall find it now more than 
ever necessary in our industrial conferences 
to pay greater regard to the general prob- 

8 113 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

lem of human efficiency. Because without 
men we could not possibly utilize our ma- 
chinery, therefore the man problem is the 
most urgent of all. 

Life at its best is a most difficult equa- 
tion to solve, and if a man should live to 
be sixty years of age before he qualifies for 
a pension, we should take into our reckoning 
the fact that the average man spends at 
least twenty years in bed, and if he is to 
avoid being everlastingly in harness, he has 
at his disposal thirty years at the most, 
during which he will be called upon to work 
out his own economic salvation, make his 
contribution to the life of the State, and 
add his quota to the collective welfare of 
humanity. And unless these principles and 
ideals actuate his life and animate his en- 
deavour, we can scarcely say that the life 
of the individual is worth while. We there- 
fore conclude this chapter with the most 
excellent words of Professor Holmes Merton : 

114 



/^ 



Selecting Employees 



Today, in industries, trades, arts, and 
professions none but efficient men and 
women are vocationally secure. The un- 
skilled, the inept, the fair-to-middling, the 
faithful but inefficient are being hard pressed 
and gradually vanquished, nor is the process 
of industrial elimination confined to the 
incapable and the untrained; a sure and 
unkind fate awaits the capable men who 
are well-trained for vocations which do not 
fit them and who, because of this, fail to 
measure up to the required efficiency stand- 
ard — sooner or later, they will be discharged 
from the ranks; and the untried yotmg 
person, no matter how ambitious and willing 
or how generally capable he or she is, finds 
great difficulty in securing employment, and 
still greater in keeping it, in any but the 
more ordinary occupations — occupations 
that offer no future enhancement — unless he 
or she has had some particular vocational 
advantages. 

115 y 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

"Efficiency is resolvable into two prime 
factors, one of which is trained skilfulness. 
Much emphasis is today being placed on 
this essential element of success. 

''Employers know its value; they dis- 
count, sometimes too heavily, all applicants 
who have not received special preparation 
for the work required. Employees are 
sensing its need; and greater numbers of 
young men and young women are making 
efforts, some eagerly, some grudgingly, 
better to qualify themselves for the posi- 
tions they seek to fill. 

''Educators have heard the call of the 
business and professional world; they are 
striving to find ways and means by which 
the demand for men and women better 
equipped for the practical affairs of life can 
be met. 

"Everywhere there is talk of vocational 
training, everywhere there is urgency for 
industrial education. Specialized schools 

Ii6 



Selecting Employees 

generally and the school systems of many 
cities are modifying their currictila and 
revolutionizing their methods in order to 
turn out trained human doers. 

''Commissions and foundations are em- 
ploying large numbers of investigators of 
the labour and trades situations, with the 
ultimate object of helping men and women 
to greater efficiency in their various voca- 
tions. Volumes of statistics have been 
compiled, classes have been conducted, 
lectures delivered, and many books written 
concerning vocational training. All of 
which is effort in the right direction and is 
productive of partial desired results. 

''But in order to produce the highest 
efficiency product, this one prime factor, 
trained skilfulness, must be multiplied by 
the other industrial prime factor, right 
choice of vocation. 

"Right choice of vocation is the natural 
basis of efficiency. 

117 



^ 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

''Let a person of intelligence get into 
the right vocation, even without specialized 
training in that vocation, and give him a 
chance to become familiar with its require- 
ments, time to overcome the handicap of 
unpreparedness, the chances are two to 
one in his favour that he will make good. 

"Were this not true, how account for 
the thousands of thoroughly efificient men 
and women in all the avenues of human 
endeavour in the past years before specific 
vocational training had been thought of 
except in certain apprenticeship callings? 

*'0n the other hand, excellent oppor- 
tunities for acquiring proficiency in any 
calling for which one has no natural apti- 
tude or mental capacity will never enable 
one to rise above mediocrity in that calling. 1/ 

''Oftentimes the best training for a mis- 
fit calling does not enable a man even to 
earn his salt in that calling, whereas the 
same man might rise to eminence in the 

Ii8 



Selecting Employees 

vocation which called his dominant abilities 
into play. 

/ *' There are two fundamental facts in 
relation to efficiency that have not received 
due attention, either in the present-day 
agitation for vocational training or in the 
extended, practical efforts that are being 
made to give young men and women in- 
creasingly better preparation for profes- 
sional and industrial life. ^ 

*'The first of these facts is that every 
vocation requires that the man who would 
successfully follow it with ease and enjoy- 
ment must have the special mental equip- 
ment — some particular faculty or ability 
or combination of natural talents — that 
especially fits him to carry on that occupa- 
tion; the second of these facts is that pro- 
found natural fact that every person is 
better adapted to carry on some one voca- 
tion than he is to carry on any other. 

''Before anything like the highest effi- 
119 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

ciency of men and women can be developed, 
vocational training must be supplemented 
by, or, better, preceded by, vocational 
guidance. Men and women, boys and girls, 
need first of all to be helped to make the 
right choice of vocation. Such fortunate 
choice of one's work means more than eflfi- 
ciency, more than financial success; it means 
an unfailing source of happiness. People 
who do not find their highest self-expression 
in their work never know one of the most 
wholesome and enduring joys of human life. 

*'The new demands of today and of the 
coming tomorrows require that a person's 
best abilities and natural gifts shall be called 
into activity in his life's vocation, require 
that everyone shall do the work he or she is 
naturally fitted to do. 

*'How to find that work is the first 
great problem. 

''The old haphazard way of drifting into 
any position at hand will no longer serve. 

1 20 



Selecting Employees 

Too many misfit, incompetent workmen, 
salesmen, professional and business men 
have restilted from such a careless chance 
way of making the most important decision 
in life. 
^/ ''In order to find the business, profes- 
sion, trade, or art where because of one's 
peculiar natural fitness for such vocation 
success may more readily be achieved than 
elsewhere, one must have, first, a know- 
ledge of one's own capabilities, developed 
or latent; and, second, a knowledge of the 
particular mental requirements of different 
vocations/' 



121 



CHAPTER VI 

SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT AND THE WEL- 
FARE OF THE WORKER 

The form of executive control known as 
Scientific Management is the reduction of 
known data in connection with a given 
manufacture to a formula, classifying, tabu- 
lating, and reducing each process until the 
whole becomes an automatic action for the 
attainment of the maximum output/' This is 
the industrial Gospel of Emerson and Taylor. 

The worker is taken and trained to the 
utmost. The particular process or part of 
a process for which he shows a particular 
aptitude is singled out, and reduced to a 
' ' task. ' ' The ' ' task ' ' becomes that worker's 
life-work : the only change given to the worker 

122 



Scientific Management 

is that demanded by fatigue and strain, 
which, as has been proved, reduce output. 

Those responsible for the system claim 
that they are able to give higher wages for 
a reduced ntmiber of working hours, the 
incapable worker is eliminated, and better 
work is produced. It undoubtedly adds 
great responsibility to the management; 
the work has to be constantly overlooked, 
internal organization must be perfected, 
detail must be constantly adjusted. Its 
principal objection is that it does not recog- 
nize the worker as a social asset; it often 
fails to make him a better citizen. However, 
as a system of industrial regimentation it 
has come to stay. 

What is now known as Welfare Work, on 
the other hand, seeks to secure the best 
results in all forms of commercial activity 
by the scientific study of the human ele- 
ment associated with the work of produc- 
tion. It seeks to study the psychology of 

123 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

each individual worker, and to fit each 
person to his work, first selecting and then 
educating or training the worker. 

It seeks to train him so that waste of 
time or material is not only morally wrong, 
but a source of loss equally to the employee 
and employer. It claims that the considera- 
tion of either side permits higher wages, 
and produces more profit. It reacts on the 
community as a whole; it makes the worker 
a better citizen and, universally practised, 
it will largely solve the problem of capital 
and labour. 

It asserts that the ''man problem'' is 
the centre of the labour problem, and that 
this is the element that needs thought and 
sympathetic consideration. 

Welfare Work as an Investment 

To make a direct charge upon each 
employee towards the cost of the Welfare 

124 



Scientific Management 

Department would be a decided error in 
judgment and defeat the end for which 
Welfare Work is established. The primary 
effect of such a charge would be to create 
a feeling of antagonism, which would mili- 
tate against the work carried on, and prove 
harmful to the feeling of confidence be- 
tween employer and employed, which it is 
the duty of Welfare Work to engender. 
Money must not play any direct part in 
the relations between the Welfare Depart- 
ment on the one side and Capital and 
Labour on the other, and if an employee 
ever does think of the cost, it must be in the 
light of a gift by the Firm. 

All firms should view the cost of Welfare 
Work as an investment, the dividend from 
which is secured by an unstinted output, 
lowered costing, effected partly by eco- 
nomical use of material, and largely by 
reduced waste, and assisted and fostered 
by a feeling of good- will among all concerned. 

125 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

The vision in the mind of the Welfare 
Superintendent is a busy hive of industry- 
peopled by workers, each doing his bit to 
attain a greater perfection; the employer 
doing all in his power to support the Welfare 
Superintendent in his efforts. He recog- 
nizes the value of the work being done, he 
has secured the good-will of his people, his 
business has expanded, the practical has 
made its appeal to him. It has cost him 
nothing and he has achieved everything. 

Does Scientific Management Lower 
Wages? 

It is the claim of those who conduct their 
establishment under Scientific Management 
that they are enabled by the increased 
production to pay a larger sum in wages 
than is otherwise possible under the recog- 
nized factory system. The statement is 
not strictly accurate, inasmuch as a higher 

126 



Scientific Management 

wage is not always paid, but the earning 
capacity of the individual is enhanced 
by a differential bonus scheme, which 
is governed by output and individual 
capacity, and not by the raising of the 
regular wage. This is the centre of much 
controversy. 

It may possibly be rather a fine distinc- 
tion, but as a question of fact it is a matter 
of some seriousness to industry as a whole, 
as this process of weeding out the capable 
from the incapable must leave its effect 
upon the community ; and here Trade Union- 
ism is placed on its trial. 

The answer to the question is in the 
affirmative, but it is necessary to qualify 
the reply with a caution that Scientific 
Management must not be allowed still 
further to divide the skilled from the un- 
skilled, with the inevitable result that the 
wages of the one suffer in raising the status 
of the other. It must be combined with 

127 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

technical training, intelligent supervision, 
and consideration of individual circum- 
stances, and then only will Scientific Man- 
agement permanently benefit the worker 
with increased remtmeration and the em- 
ployer by more profitable results. 

The Problem of Modem Manufacture 
can be reduced to very few words: *'A 
fair day's work for a fair day's pay"; it is 
the duty of the worker to perform the 
former, and the duty of the manufacturer 
to provide the latter; but what is a fair 
day's task for a fair day's pay is not a 
measurable quantity, and it is this feature 
that forms the prime difficulty between 
capital and labour. 

Scientific Management claims that it has 
at least decided one of these issues, for it 
has reduced the ability to decide a *'fair 
day's work" to an exact science. And it 
further claims that it has gone a long way 
on the road towards deciding the share 

128 



Scientific Management 

that labour may claim as its share of the 
profits. 

The Scientific Manager claims that he is 
able to pay a larger remuneration than his 
competitor in the same field, and he asserts 
that he is able to give shorter hours than 
factories that are conducted under the old 
methods. This has been abundantly proved 
and demonstrated beyond the stage of 
experiment. 

The Welfare Worker views the question 
from a different outlook, and seeks to 
himianize the life of those engaged in mill 
and factory. His claim is that, by study- 
ing the individual needs of each worker, 
and, so far as is practicable, suiting the 
work to the individual, and making the 
sphere in which it is carried on congenial, 
the community as a whole is benefited 
and the individual worker is filled with 
greater ambition, enjoys a better life, an- 
ticipates his work with pleasure, and is 
9 129 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

altogether a more useful citizen. The de- 
sired result is attained: capital receives an 
adequate return and labour an adequate 
reward. 



130 



APPENDIX A 

HANDLING THE HUMAN FACTOR 

The Military System. — The divisional 
system is sometimes termed the ''MiHtary'' 
system, and although this form is frequently 
caricatured, the ''Military'' or ''Line'' 
system has carried the burden of our indus- 
trial arts for many decades, and we must 
admit it did it exceedingly well. Military 
systems today, which are supplemented by 
the Intelligence Department, can be pointed 
out as in successful operation at much less 
cost than more highly elaborate systems. 
This latter system is one which cannot be 
over-emphasized. However, the real diflfi- 
culty in this connection, in the thoroughly 
organized military shop system, is that of 

131 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

human limitations: (i) the ntmiber of 
people who can be effectively supervised 
and instructed; (2) the nimiber of things 
that can be planned by any single indi- 
vidual reaches its limit at the plant tmit 
growth and the system begins to fall in 
the scale of efficiency thereafter, because 
one man seldom can effectively supervise 
a multitude of operatives. 

The Functional System operates along 
the line largely of regimentation plus the 
closer contact with the employee. When- 
ever the element of personal contact with 
the workman, by supervising divisional 
officers, ceases, the corresponding necessity 
for the smaller departmental unit control 
arises. In this connection some confusion 
at present exists, and it is supposed by 
many, and asserted by some, that there is 
a particular economic virtue in pressing 
departmental systems into the extreme 
functional forms. Yet, here again, in actual 

132 



Handling the Human Factor 

practice we encounter Human Nature and 
we are brought to realize that shop manage- 
ment is an Art rather than a Science and 
that it has to deal with too many unknown 
and tmcharted quantities and variables 
before it can aspire to scientific rank or 
become a fixed commercial creed. Our 
intention is that all our efforts in system 
should be directed toward developing a 
science of each industry, but before we can 
have anything in the nature of science we 
await the intensive development of the 
industrial engineer himself. Let it then be 
said that there is, in fact, no royal road to 
shop efficiency. The great problem of the 
Human Equation cannot in the very na- 
ture of things be solved by any system as 
such, because what is now known as scien- 
tific management is in the throes and perils 
of experimentation. It may be said with- 
out any misgiving that more often than 
not the great problem facing the Depart- 

133 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

mental Manager is not so much the man 
whose work he supervises as the problem of 
Himself. Departments that are highly 
fimctionalized in supervising, in order to 
fix responsibility, often fail in practice. 
Hence the need of science and system and 
the analysis of the complex problem of the 
human. 

The Departmental System, on the other 
hand, as distinguished from the functional, 
lays down no dogmatic rule on industry. 
It has no quarrel with initiative and in- 
centive. It does not seek their extinction 
as some systems do, but rather their wise 
control. In a good organization, and aided 
by first-class intelligence and method-study 
divisions — ^for these elements are not pecu- 
liar to one particular system — it splits up 
the shops into units of control of reasonable 
size, supplies the best staff assistance, 
apparatus, material, and scientific instruc- 
tions, leaves the head of each department 

134 



Handling the Human Factor 

ftill control within his sphere, and holds 
him solely responsible for increasingly effi- 
cient results. In getting these he may 
functionalize more highly in some directions 
than in others, but he does so not because 
of any obligation under an inflexible system 
to follow that course, but owing to the 
proved desirability of it. This then is true 
scientific management, management accord- 
ing to knowledge of the facts of the case 
and not according to theories previously 
framed to suit external facts. 

Supplementary 

We append seven rules with regard to 
the efficiency of office and plant routine, 
which should be observed irrespective of 
the class of work done: 

(i) Have a well-considered system of 
doing things, definite and businesslike in 
all departments, not an imitation of some- 

135 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

thing else, but one designed for your own 
use. 

(2) See that a broad view of the subject is 
taken, and provision made for properly dove- 
tailing the various departmental systems. 
• (3) Make the connection clear to all 
employees by the use of a chart. Such a 
table is self -interpreting and saves much 
explanation. 

(4) Have as little system and as few 
forms as possible. Make them a means, 
not an end. There are many daily items 
of shop practice being perpetuated in ex- 
pensive card systems today, of which no 
use whatever is being made, or is ever likely 
to be made. 

(5) Do not treat the system as a fetish. 
It is a good servant, but a bad master. So 
much of it as is justifiable is merely or- 
ganized common sense. Prune and pare 
your system without stint, until it gives 
the utmost economy and dispatch. 

136 



Handling the Human Factor 

(6) Do not fail to note closely what your 
system costs, and if it is really paying its 
way. Very few can answer that question. 
With many it is purely a matter of faith. 

(7) Be always on the lookout for im- 
provements and suggestions from any re- 
sponsible quarter, and discriminating in 
adopting them. 

Modern system in the Production De- 
partment should receive the hearty and 
discriminating support of all plant man- 
agers. The latter will increasingly be drawn 
from the ranks of those who have added to 
a thoroughly practical executive discipline 
in the shops a full comprehension of what 
system can, and also what it cannot, 
accomplish. 

The amount of modern system we need 
in our industries bids fair amply to justify 
itself by its efficiency, particularly in the 
lean years. The rest is deadweight, and 
should go promptly overboard. 

137 



APPENDIX B 

TRAINING EXECUTIVES FOR EFFICIENCY 

Each step forward in the reconstruction 
of our industrial machine brings us nearer 
to that point where problems of Manage- 
ment and Administration become more 
difficult and in many cases more abstract. 
We are called upon to organize more effec- 
tively the basic administrative imits in 
our offices and in our shops and factories. 
There is an increasing demand for efficient 
managers, superintendents, and captains 
in our industrial divisions. In short, we 
must, by all manner of means and at all 
costs, obtain the competent individual and 
secure efficiency. 

Each branch of Industry is seeking for a 
138 



Training Executives for Efficiency 

solution of the problem of efficiency, some- 
times at the expense of other departments 
and often without any real sense of the in- 
terdependence and interlocking of organiza- 
tion units. Whatever else we fail to get, we 
must have co-ordination, but the pressure of 
events is effecting some change in our atti- 
tude towards this matter. The truth of 
the matter is that until we can articulate 
the units of organization into a more scien- 
tific structure, their amplification (in view 
of the splitting up of the mechanical pro- 
cesses of labour and standardization) may 
easily become an overwhelming embarrass- 
ment. So that now, rather than look for 
more men, we are seeking for those ideas 
and bases of action which will most effec- 
tively co-ordinate and harmonize the power 
of the men we have. Difficulties of the 
kind that arise today are of such magnitude 
and involve the proper adjustment of so 
many interests, the co-ordination of so many 

139 



Humain and Industrial Efficiency 

agencies, as to be baffling in the extreme. 
We have no counterpart in the economic 
evolution of industriahsm. We are as men 
sailing on an uncharted sea. The centraliza- 
tion of authority fundamental to the dis- 
cussion of nearly all such matters is the 
question of the degree of centralization of 
administrative authority, with the sub- 
sidiary problem of correct and balanced 
decentralization. And here we shall prob- 
ably find the solution by adopting what is 
called the military principle of industrial 
regimentation. It would appear that a 
maximum of centralization, which is un- 
desirable (as is too much decentralization), 
is obnoxious. Either extreme may create 
inefficiency. The policy of the captains of 
industry should be rather to aim at that 
degree of decentralization that is consistent 
with a strong, potent, and far-sighted 
central control. Here again, however, in 
bringing about this type of administrative 

140 



Training Executives for Efficiency 

control, there are many difficulties to be 
encountered; for we are told that our new 
democracy must turn to industrial absolu- 
tism for its model, if it seeks, first of all, to 
be efficient and, finally, effective. In this 
theory of management we shall have our 
industrial institutions modelled on the type 
organized by the man who is known as the 
Captain of Industry. 

But here we must not leave out of our 
industrial system the great problem, the 
essential consent of the employee in the 
adoption of these schemes of the scientific 
correlation and regimentation of industrial 
administration. We must develop in every 
unit of organization the desire for a common 
leadership and an ability to respond to that 
leadership when it is intelligent. Here we 
meet with the problem of Functional and Staff 
Training, and the development of that 
personal factor of efficiency without which 
there can be no such thing as loj^alty, har- 

141 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

mony, and that correct disposition on the 
part of the worker which eventuates in the 
happiness of all. But more important even 
than this, we must develop as our leaders 
of industry men who realize that their ca- 
pacity for leadership is conditioned by the 
loyalty of those they seek to lead, and they 
must be men to whom facts are masters and 
whose scientific training ensures the higher 
degree of efficiency and management. These 
top controls, which must necessarily be es- 
tablished, will, when thoroughly co-ordinated 
and made scientific, be beyond anything 
we have ever dealt with in industry. It 
will be the function of these super-organi- 
zations to seek out the inner theories of 
action, to enunciate policies, record per- 
formance, and capitalize experience. 

The organization of any form of top con- 
trol can only proceed as we develop the 
organization of each of the units the activi- 
ties of which are eventually to be correlated. 

142 



Training Executives for Efficiency 

Little authority of this kind exists, except 
in great combines and monopoHstic con- 
centrations, and what we have stated herein 
is as a sign-post pointing out the road along 
which we must inevitably and eventually 
travel to our industrial Utopia. 



143 



APPENDIX C 

HOW TO ESTABLISH AN EFFICIENCY CLUB 

A Preliminary Meeting of the Staff is 
called, presided over by the Management, 
at which the Aims and Objects of the Club 
are outlined and a synopsis of the course of 
training, etc., submitted and explained. 

It is usual for the Management to select 
from each Department the most promising 
Members of the Staff, and these form the 
nucleus of the Club, or, in some cases, the 
entire Staff may be taken in groups by 
rotation. 

The House or Works Club would be con- 
trolled by the Executive of the Company, 
who fix the place of meeting and the time, 
and lectures and demonstrations are given. 

144 



How to Establish An Ef¥iciency Club 

The Meetings are held during or after 
business hours, and take place as frequently 
as convenient, or are arranged for weekly 
or at least once a month. 

Intermediate Meetings should be en- 
couraged among the Staff, where among 
themselves the Members of the Club dis- 
cuss the problems arising out of each 
Lecture and their daily experience in the 
dispatch of departmental duties. 

Rules and Regulations 

Rules are drawn up by the Executive 
for the conduct of the Club, and a Secretary 
is appointed to keep minutes and a perma- 
nent record of all Meetings. A verbatim, 
revised Report of each Lecture is given to 
each Member. 

A regular report is submitted to the 
Executive in order to assess the results 
attained by the Club as a whole and so 
^^ 145 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

register progress. It is usual for the course 
of training to extend over a period of twelve 
months, but it may be abbreviated and 
adapted to the domestic and local conditions 
of the Firm or Company. 

It may be indicated that the technical 
routine and system of the firm are not 
trenched upon except incidentally, because 
this factor is mainly the province of the 
Executive and the Management. 

Cost of Such a Training 

If an Instructor is brought into the 
Works from outside it is usual for the Com- 
pany to pay the fees of the Members, or 
otherwise contract for the services of the 
Lecturer or Instructor, unless training is 
undertaken by the Management. In some 
instances the Company itself would prefer 
to pay the entire cost of the course of train- 
ing and control its administration. 

146 



How to Establish An Efficiency Club 

In order to foster a spirit of co-operation 
aiming at the attainment of a higher per- 
centage of result, some firms adopt a co- 
operative system whereby the Members of 
the House Club pay part of the cost of 
training, the Members' payment being 
spread over a given period in instalments 
and is returnable for those who attain the 
highest grades of efficiency. The course of 
study or training should cover such subjects 
as: 

A History ot the Firm: The Nature of 
its Product: Conditions of Manufacture. 
Business Considered as a Science. The 
Aims and Objects of Business Life. The 
Service Idea and its Relation to the Com- 
pany: Relation between Learning and Earn- 
ing: Cultivation of Initiative: Value of 
Personality in Business. Personal Efficiency 
and the Laws of Health: Self -discipline: 
Training the Will. How to Obtain Mental 
Efficiency: What the Mind is and How it 

147 



Human and Industrial Efficiency 

Works. The Cultivation of Tact, Courtesy, 
Order, and Promptness. How to Save 
Time, Energy, and Money, and Eliminate 
Waste. Efficiency in Methods of Work: 
The use of Time and Motion Study. How 
to Organize Oneself: Self -Education. Busi- 
ness Ethics: Fatal Habits Easily Acquired: 
The Need for Loyalty and Co-operation: 
Reliability and Honesty: The Habits of 
System and Punctuality: The Interdepend- 
ence of Departments, etc. 

This brief digest may be suggestive of 
other ideas which may fit in with the local 
and domestic needs of the firm. In any 
case such an educational scheme has now 
come to be recognized as being as necessary 
as a costing department or a sales de- 
partment. 

Considering the problem of training em- 
ployees in the Works to the end that they 
may get adequate insight into the nature 
and character of their daily duties and the 

148 



How to Establish An Efficiency Club 

relation of same to the efficiency of the whole 
concern, it has been found in actual prac- 
tice that a scheme such as is outlined above 
is most effective in the production of results 
and the development of the personal factor 
to the very highest degree of efficiency. 

The method suggested may be deemed 
new, and in some senses novel, but the fact 
remains that such an organization within 
the works, rightly conducted, would elimi- 
nate most, if not all, of the troubles which 
arise through departmental misunderstand- 
ing and jealousy — the most perilous nega- 
tive factor in any institution. 

Executives who aim at efficient manage- 
ment will soon find that the adoption of 
such a scheme, adapted to local needs, 
would create that essential atmosphere 
among the workers without which there 
can never be true efficiency. 



149 



W49 






^ 











'-e^o* 




^»* ^^ ^ * ^ 






'»^,4.*" -^Mm^^\ '-^^xi' * 




V 




CV- ^_«!V -V5^- ^>..4 .._... . 




>* .o'J 



'bV"' 



'-ne.o^ 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Aug. 2003 



* o* f*^ ^•^^•••^V* ,•, ^ PreservationTechnologies 

J^'* .•^^TUfc ^ ^^ ^V .•^ ^*_ ' A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 



1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



^^^'^ei'^''^- /^^i^'-\ ^''^•^S**'^ 













^it., «» 



V 'iT^o* .«.<-' >o. 







:\// 



p*.*!.:;^'* "**> 










2"^ ■ 



o^ 







e.'i«C« 









i-. %...^" :i 



